
COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



One Hundred 
Great Texts and Their 
Treatment 

TEXTS, ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT BY 
NOTED PREACHERS AND ILLUSTRATIVE 
THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS 



INCLUDING 

SERMON SUGGESTIONS FOR GENERAL AND SPECIAL 
OCCASIONS —THANKSGIVING, CHRISTMAS, 
NEW YEAR'S, EASTER, MEMORIAL DAY, 
MOTHER'S DAY, CHILDREN'S DAY, 
BACCALAUREATE, ETC. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
BY REV. CHARLES H. PARKHURST, D.D. 



F. M. BARTON 
CLEVELAND, OHIO 



Copyright, 1914, 
By F. M. Barton 



-91914 

©CU371308 



FOREWORD 

This volume will be a mental stimulant to the reader who 
uses it in the spirit in which it was prepared. If swallowed 
whole it may cause indigestion. If used in reasonable quantities, 
and with the bread of your own labor and experience, it will 
sharpen and also help satisfy your appetite for sermon prepara- 
tion. And if you enjoy the preparation of your sermons, your 
congregations will enjoy hearing them. 

If after choosing your te.ct or your subject, and having set 
forth what is in your own larder, you find what Great Texts has 
to offer, what other preachers of note have done, you can cry 
with the prophet, "Come, eat!" 

Or to use another simile — If you have gotten all your ser- 
mon building material together, and you find that it will make 
only a two-room house, then you may go to Great Texts and get 
material to add other rooms. The plans of other preachers will 
help you plan yours. The illustrations will help you put in more 
windows that will let in more light and more heat. 

The man who is entirely original is a new order of creation. 
The greater a genius the greater his indebtedness to the knowl- 
edge of those who have gone before. The man who profits not 
by the wisdom of others is a willful child who must have his 
fingers burned before he will believe a stove is hot. 

This obligation of one to another is best set forth by Spur- 
geon, who certainly was the peer of preachers of his own time 
if not of all time. He says: 

"Paul had a few books, which were left perhaps wrapped up 
in the cloak, ami Timothy was to be careful to bring them. Even 
an apostle must read. Some of our self-sufficient brethren have 
thought a minister who reads books and studies his sermon must 
be a very deplorable specimen of a preacher. A man who goes 
up into the pulpit, professes to take his text on the spot, and talk 
any quantity of nonsense, is the idol of many. If he will speak 
without premeditation, or pretend to do so, and never produce 
what they call a dish of dead man's brain — ah ! that is the 
preacher. T low rebuked are they by the apostle ! He is inspired, 
and yet he "Wants books ! He has been preaching for thirty years, 
and yet he wants books ! He has seen the Lord, and yet he wants 
books! He has a wider experience than most men, and yet he 
wants books! He had been caught up into the very heaven, and 
had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, and 
yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New 
Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Tim- 
othy, and so he says to every preacher, 'Give thyself unto read- 
ing.' The man who never reads will never be read ; he who never 
quotes will never be quoted ; he who will not use the thoughts of 
other men's brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. 
Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people — you 
need to read." — C. H. Spurgeon. 

FREDERICK BARTON. 

iii 



CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS. 



BACCALAUREATE— XIV. 
CHILDREN'S DAY— XXI, XXII. 
CHRISTMAS— XXXVI, LI, LVIII. 

COMFORT— VII, X, XIV, XV, XVII, XX, XXV, XXVI, LXI, 
LXII, LXIII, LXVI LXXII, LXXV. 

DECISION DAY— VIII. 

EASTER— LVI, LXXVIII. 

EDIFICATION— V, VII, X, XIV, XV, XVII, XX, XXIV, 
XXVI, XXX, XXXIII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL, XLV, 
XLVI, XLVIII, XLIX, LII, LXI, LXIII, LXV, LXIX, 
LXX, LXXIII, LXXVI, LXXVII, LXXIX, LXXX, 
LXXXI, LXXXII, LXXXIV, LXXXV, LXXXVI, 
LXXXVIII, LXXXIX, XCI, XCII, XCIII, XCIV, XCV, 
XCVI, XCVIII. 

EVANGELISTIC— IV, VI, VIII, IX, XI, XIII, XVI, XXI, 
XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXXI, 
XXXII, XXXIII, XXXVII, XLII, XLIII, XLIV, XLVI, 
LV, LVIII, LIX, LX, LXII, LXVIII, LXXI, LXXXIII. 

FRATERNAL ORDERS — II, XLVII, LXXXII, XCV, 
XCVIII, XCIX, C. 

FUNERALS— III, XII, XXV, LXXII, LXXXVI. 

IN TIMES OF PUBLIC CALAMITY— XII, XVIII, XIX. 

MEN'S MEETINGS— XIII. 

MISSIONS— L. 

MOTHERS' DAY— XLIV, LXVII. 

NEW YEAR— I, V, VII, X, XIV, XV, XVII, XX, XXIV, 
XXVI, XC, XCIII. 

PENTECOST— LXIV. 

SERMONS ON GIVING— XXXV, XLI, LIV. 
THANKSGIVING DAY— XVIII. 



iv 



CONTENTS 



I. Genesis 1 :1. The God Behind the World 1 

II. Genesis 4:9. The Sphere of Influence 7 

III. Genesis 5 24. A Walk Through Life with God 13 

cLV. Genesis 15:6. Saved by Faith 19 

V. Exodus 3:12. The Divine Presence 25 

C VI. Deuteronomy 5 :29. The Path of Obedience. . 31 
VII. Deuteronomy 33 :27. The Safety of God's 

Children 37 

oVIII. Joshua 24:15. Life's Supreme Choice 43 

IX. 1 Samuel 16:7. Under the Scrutiny of Omni- 
science 47 

X. 2 Kings 6 :16, 17. Faith's Vision of Our Heav- 
enly Allies 53 

XI. Esther 4:14. Following the Gleam 57 

XII. Job 2:10. Faith's Superiority to Circumstance 63 

XIII. Psalm 1 :l-3. The Gain of Godliness 65 

XIV. Psalm 18:19. Life Means Opportunity (Bac- 

calaureate) 73 

XV. Psalm 23 :1. The Confidence of the Saved. . . 79 

XVI. Psalm 51 :1. The Forgiveness of Sin 83 — 

XVII. Psalm 91:1. Soul Shelter 87 

XVIII. Psalm 103:1. The Grateful Heart 93 

XIX. Psalm 107:39. The Meaning of Disaster 99 ✓ 

XX. Psalm 121. Our Omnipotent Helper 105 

XXI. Proverbs 8 :36. The Wreck of a Soul Ill 

XXII. Ecclesiastes 12:1. Youth for Christ (Chil- 
dren's Day) 117 

XXIII. Isaiah 1 :18. God's Pardoning Grace 125 

XXIV. Isaiah 26:3. Soul Peace 129 

XXV. Isaiah 35:10. The Joy of the Redeemed 135 

XXVI. Isaiah 43:1,2. The Safeguarded Life 141 

XXVII. Isaiah 48:18. The Blessed Results of Obedi- 
ence 145 

XXVIII. Isaiah 53:4-6. The Lamb of God 149 

XXIX. Isaiah 55:1. The Great Invitation 155 

XXX. Isaiah 55:11. The Divine Guarantee 159 

XXXI. Jeremiah 17:9. The Foe Within 165 

XXXII. Jeremiah 22:13. The Success that Is Failure. 169 

XXXIII. Daniel 12:3. The Wisdom and the Rewards 

of the Soul-Winner 175 

XXXIV. Nahuml:7. Our Sure Refuge 179 

XXXV. Malachi 3:8. Business Success and Soul 

Failure 183 

XXXVI. Matthew 1 :23. God With Us 187 

XXXVII. Matthew 3:8. Repentance Fruitage 191 

v 



XXXVIII. Matthew 4:1. Temptations : Christ's and Ours 195 

XXXIX. Matthew 5 :8. Heart Purity 199 

XL. Matthew 5:16. Shining Lives 205 

XLL Matthew 6:24. God or Gold 209 

XLII. Matthew 10 :32, 33. The Loyal Avowal 213 

XLIIL Matthew 11:28. Soul Rest 217 

XLIV. Matthew 15 :28. Dynamic Faith 221 

XLV. Matthew 18:19. Prayer's Sure Answer 225 

XLVI. Matthew 25 :13. Spiritual Alertness 229 

XLVII. Matthew 25:40. When Work Becomes Wor- 
ship 233 

XLVIII. Mark 8:34. Sacrificing Self for Christ 239 

XLIX. Mark 12:30. The Great Commandment 243 

L. Mark 16:15. The Great Commission 247 

LI. Luke 2:10. The Christian Gladness 251 

LII. Luke 6:46. Life Must Validate Profession. . . 257 

LIII. Luke 8:11. Truth-Seed 261 

LIV. Luke 12:15. Covetousness 267 

LV. Luke 15 :20. Pardon for the Penitent 273 

« LVI. Luke 24 :6. Christ's Conquest of Death 277 

LVII. John 1:9. The Light of the World Is Jesus. . 281 

LVIII. John 1:29. The Lamb of God. 285 

LIX. John 3 :3. Spiritual Transformation 289 

LX. John 3:16. God's Transcendent Love Dem- 
onstrated 293 

LXI. John 6 :68. "Other Refuge Have I None". ... 297 

LXII. John 8:11. The Gospel of Another Chance. . . 301 

LXIII. John 14:1. The Untroubled Heart of Trust. . 307 

LXIV. John 14:26; John 16:13. Our Divine Guide. . 311 

LXV. John 15:5. The Life of Abiding 317 

LXVI. John 16:33. The Conquest of Adversity 323 

LXVII. John 19:27. Men's Mothers (Mothers' Day). 329 

LXVIII. Acts 4:12. "None Other Name" 335 

LXIX. Acts 26:22. Recognition of Divine Help 339 

LXX. Romans 1 :16. The Dynamics of the Gospel. . 345 

LXXI. Romans 5:8. Grace 349 

LXXII. Romans 8:18. Heaven as an Incentive 353 

LXXIII. Romans 8:37. Conquerors Through Christ. . 359 

LXXIV. Romans 12 :1, 2. Unconditional Surrender. . . 363 

LXXV. 1 Corinthians 2 :9, 10. The Vision of the Home 

Prepared 367 

LXXVI. 1 Corinthians 10:12, 13. Eternal Vigilance the 

Price of Victory 373 

LXXVII. 1 Corinthians 13:13. Love Supreme 377 

LXXVIII. 1 Corinthians 15:20. The Risen Christ 381 

LXXIX. 2 Corinthians 3 :2. Living Epistles 387 

LXXX. 2 Corinthians 12 :7-9. Sanctified Trials 393 

LXXXI. Galatians 2 :20. The Life in Christ 397 

LXXXII. Galatians 6 :2. Burden Bearing 403 

vi 



LXXXIII. Galatians 6:7, 8. The Spiritual Harvest 409 

LXXXIV. Ephesians 3 :17-19. The Fruits of an Indwell- 
ing Christ 415 

LXXXV. 2 Timothy 1 :6. Our Responsibility for Our 

Growth 419 

LXXXVI. 2 Timothy 1 :12. Sure 423 

LXXXVII. 2 Timothy 4 :7, 8. The Warfare Ended : the 

Crown Won 429 

LXXXVIII. Hebrews 11 27. The Secret of Endurance. . . 435 

LXXXIX. Hebrews 12:1, 2. Looking unto Jesus 439 

XC. Hebrews 13:8. The Changing Years and the 

Unchanging Christ 445 

XCI. James 2:17. Faith's Fruitage 449 

XCII. 1 Peter 1:8. "Toy Unspeakable" 453' 

XCIII. 1 Peter 5 :7. The Cure for Care 459 

XCIV. 1 John 2:15. The Lure of the World 465 

XCV. 1 John 4:11. Brotherly Love 469 

XCVI. 1 John 5:14, 15. The Assurance of Answered 

Prayers 473 

XCVII. Jude 21. Standing in the Sunshine 479 

SUPPLEMENTARY 

XCVIII. Luke 10:29. The Neighbor Spirit 483 

XCIX. Proverbs 17:17. Friendship — Fraternalism. . 487 
C. 1 Samuel 20:42. To Odd Fellows 491 



vii 



PULPIT AIMS. 



By Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D., LL.D. 

Lecturing is not preaching. The functions pertaining to the platform 
and the pulpit are distinct; or if to some degree they seem to coalesce, 
their purposes are distinct. If they do not always appear so it is because 
the platform is sometimes removed from the public hall and set up in a 
sanctuary in place of the pulpit which has been taken down and moved 
out 

Socrates was not satisfied to be a lecturer; he wanted to be more 
than a lecturer and to be a preacher. If he had been contented to be a 
lecturer he would have been allowed to live. But as he insisted on 
preaching, the Athenians fell back from him and gave him hemlock tea. 

Aristotle was not satisfied to be a lecturer. He, too, wanted to be 
more than a lecturer and to preach. If he had been contented to lecture 
he might have remained at Athens, but as he insisted on preaching, 
although he was not executed as Socrates was, he found it convenient to 
remove from Athens. 

Formerly, then, preaching was a dangerous profession. It was some- 
times so in old Hebrew times. John the Baptist maintained himself in 
his pulpit for a time with unabated popularity, but in one lucky, or un- 
lucky, moment, he delivered a short discourse that was rather more evi- 
dently and pointedly applicable than usual and he lost not only his pulpit 
but bis head. That might have occurred before if the parish to which 
he preached had had the same power over life and death that was pos- 
sessed by the king who executed him. 

Jesus Christ never lectured. What he said, so far as it has been 
preserved to us, was distinctly sermon. His pastorate lasted about three 
years. He was crucified for being a homiletical irritation, nuisance, if 
you please. There are ministers in New York who have stood in the 
pulpit ten times as many years as Christ preached in Judea, Samaria and 
Galilee, and yet apparently without a desire that they should be cruci- 
fied, except perhaps on the part of a very limited number. 

Not long after, Stephen, the proto-martyr, was stoned. His pastorate 
was only a brief one. So far as we are informed, he preached but once; 
but it was preaching. The earlier part of the discourse was rather after 
the lecture order — historical, and the Jews were always fond of history, 
that is to say the records of their own people. The lecture portion had 
continued for quite a long time before the hearers began to sense its 
drift. Fifty verses out of the fifty-six were spent in lifting the hammer 
before bringing It down on to the nail, but when it reached the nail there 
was howling and teeth-gnashing, and the only reply they could make was 
to throw stones at him, till, as the records say, "he fell asleep." 

It Is an interesting Incident of that same Bcene that Saul was there, 
who afterwards became Paul. He heard the sermon; probably he saw 

ix 



tile Hammer, tne nail, the stones and the death. Without that sermon 
there might have been no Paul. Preaching that has hammer and nails in 
it and that hurts was, at that time, the kind of discourse that preachers 
preached. A man who is in a dead sleep cannot be awakened by sprink- 
ling him with lavender water. 

Then as to the Twelve Apostles, tradition has it that all of them but 
one died a violent death. That was because they did not attempt to dis- 
charge their apostolic functions by lecturing, but by preaching. They went 
about it affectionately, as did Stephen. No man ever preached with a 
tenderer, sweeter spirit than did Stephen. His last words were, "Lord, 
lay not this sin to their charge," gentle and forgiving even in death ag- 
ony. And yet he worked with hammer and nail. 

But to go back a little, and indicate by reference to Socrates, Aristotle 
and others what it is that distinguishes preaching from lecturing and that 
makes preaching to be preaching. 

John Stuart Blackie, of the University of Edinburgh, was setting 
forth the character of Socrates as a preacher and at the same time indi- 
cating the difference between that and lecturing when he said: 

"If the speaker has a real vocation to address his fellowmen on moral 
subjects, and if he does not dwell in vague and trivial generalities, sound- 
ing very pious on Sunday, but having no distinct and recognizable refer- 
ence to the secular business of Monday, then a good sermon may be 
compared to a discharge of moral electricity which will arouse many 
sleepers, or to the setting up a sure finger-post which will direct many 
wanderers." 

Therein lies the difference between Socrates and the sophists. The 
sophists talked for the sake of talking; argued for the sake of arguing; 
and when they were through arguing and talking, things were just where 
they were before, their audience unchanged, and they themselves in no 
slightest danger of crucifixion, for nothing had occurred either to stimu- 
late particularly the intelligence of their hearers, or, which is more im- 
portant, to touch or irritate their consciences. 

The author from whom I have just quoted handles Aristotle in the 
same way, and in the biographical sketch which he has prepared of him 
includes the following paragraph: 

"Once and again in the first two books of his treatise does he repeat 
the solemn warning that our object in inquiring into the nature of virtue 
is not that we may know what virtue is, but that we may be virtuous. 
Once and again does he enter a protest against the tendencies of his 
countrymen, always ready to stand and debate even when the solution of 
the problem was to be found only in motion and action. Subtleties of any 
kind indeed are not suitable for a moral discourse. Ethical philosophy 
refers as distinctly to a deed as a sword refers to a cut; and all ques- 
tions of morals are idle and pernicious that do not bear directly on some 
practical result." 

We have already spoken of the tone of John the Baptist's address to 
the throngs that gathered to his preaching in the wilderness. He leveled 
his instructions to what he knew to be their need. He mad© no apologiea 
tor the directness of his discourse. There was no attempt to win them to 

x 



himself, but only to point out to them the path of personal and individual 
duty and to insist on their walking in it. His preaching was motived hy 
no disposition to make truth acceptable to his hearers or duty easy for 
them. Instead of abating the strenouosness of obligation and letting it 
down to the lower level of life they were leading, he aimed only to elevate 
them to the higher level of the life they were not leading. 

He worked for results. There was no dramatic representation of 
what men in general ought to be, but an undecorated exhibit of what the 
men in front of him ought to be. We can depend upon it that when hia 
hearers went back to their respective businesses, they did not go con- 
gratulating themselves on the attractive presentation of truth to which It 
had been their great pleasure to listen. 

Very likely it had not been to them altogether a pleasure, for what he 
had dwelt upon had not been of a kind to appeal to their dramatic in- 
stincts or to induce in them complacency and self-felicitation. In other 
words, John the Baptist was a preacher, and, as already intimated, when 
some time later he pushed his moral poignard down a little deeper into 
the place where the nerves lie so thick and so sensitive, the victim of bis 
discourse struck back and he had to bleed for it. The blood he shed was 
proof presumptive that he preached, not lectured. 

All of that which we have been remarking of John the Baptist is 
equally true, more than equally true, of the discourses of our Lord. We 
have an idea that there was a certain gentleness about the way in which 
Christ dealt with his audience that can not be predicated of the Baptist. 
But even so, the larger part of what is preserved to us is very much in 
the nature of a surgical operation. His surgery was ordinarily — not al- 
ways — exceedingly courteous and considerate, but It was surgery. He 
stripped off the cuticle and operated among the nerves, — and that hurts. 

When he said unto them, "Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypo- 
crites," the operation was not only a surgical one, but one that was un- 
tempered by tenderness of method. It is not easy to understand exactly 
what is meant by people who expatiate serenely and comfortably upon 
the winsomeness of the lessons that are taught In the gospels and the 
appeals that are distributed through them. 

Take, as an example, the Sermon on the Mount, with its ominous 
conclusion. The Decalogue is not an approximation to it in the severity 
of its demands. 

The latter puts before men an Ideal of what they should do; the for- 
mer an ideal of what they should be. Anybody can do right if he trie* 
hard, but he has to try a great deal harder in order to be right. We do 
not have to exert ourselves in order to abstain from killing our neigh- 
bor, but how about loving that neighbor, — not simply loving James, whom 
It may be easy to be fond of, but loving William, despicable, ugly, dirty 
William? 

There is, to be sure, a great deal of love wrought into the texture of 
the gospel, and so the slopes of the high hills are covered with flowers 
of Ineffable beauty, and one can pick flowers and scent their fragrance 
without taking account of the blunt rock that lies to immeaaureable 
depths underneath. 

xi 



Misapprehension of the real situation grows out of this fact that, 
Christ's law of life has been interpreted in a way to exempt from the 
duty of obeying Christ's law. Those fiery bodies that we call the fixed 
stars are beautiful when seen at this distance, but the heat that is in 
them would make it uncomfortable to live there. So Christ, viewed at 
the distance of twenty centuries, is attractive. We are impressed by his 
gentleness, his loving kindness, sympathy and patient service rendered 
to all kinds of need and destitution. But were he to come among us he 
would be just as unpopular as he was twenty centuries ago. 

An ideal expressed in worcs is very winsome, but an ideal dressed 
in flesh and standing at our elbow, with its very sublimity uttering itself 
in silent denunciation of our own moral turpitude and spiritual paltri- 
ness, would be just what the Bible calls it, "a consuming fire." It would 
be like living in the hot star Sirius, so resplendent in its distant complex- 
ion but so torrid when approached near enough to become a neighbor. 
We should become like Peter who "fell down at Jesus' feet saying. De- 
part from me for I am a sinful man." 

That was the secret of Christ's loneliness when upon earth. He 
wanted people, but they did not want him. When it came evening, as we 
are once told, all the people scattered to their homes. He had no home, 
and no one cared to entertain him for the night, and so he went forth 
and passed the night among the hills and under the stars. He would 
be treated here just as he was in Jerusalem and be called an impossible. 
Things have not changed in the course of two thousand years, the great 
things, I mean, the large relations. 

Perfect holiness is the same as it was in Jerusalem and sin is the 
same. And the two are as far apart. And sin hates holiness as it did 
at the moment when the nails were being driven into Christ's body pre- 
paratory to crucifixion. I have read that long before Christ came it was 
declared by a certain Greek that if perfect holiness should appear on 
earth it would be crucified. Perhaps that is only a story. It may be true. 
It might be. They will not come to the light, said Jesus, because their 
deeds are evil. It is not so much hearing about goodness, having it de- 
scribed, etc., that is disquieting. On the contrary, it is rather soothing, 
caressing. It is only when it comes so close as to be exacting, menacing, 
that it begins to ruffle us. 

It is pleasant to sit before an open wood fire and see the play of the 
flames and think long thoughts and see visions in the tongues of fire, but 
if the heat begins to become more than just so intense we say that it is 
getting too warm and we move back. Flame is pretty, wondrously fas- 
cinating, till it approaches contact with us, then it is horrible. 

It is strange that a thing can be at once so charming and so repul- 
sive; that Sirius can be so beautiful to look upon at a distance and so 
excruciating to live in. It is the weakness of the existing pulpit that its 
portrayal of holiness and sin impresses people neither with the beauty of 
the one nor with the hatefulness of the other and therefore with the 
contrast between them. 

That is why we preachers get along so harmoniously with our peo- 
ple. It was a remark made by a former pastor of a very prominent 

xii 



church In New York City that if he preached the whole truth and brought 
that truth close to the consciences of his congregation, he would not be 
allowed to remain long in his pulpit. That might seem an exaggerated 
statement. You can have your own opinion of it. He has since left that 
pulpit and is pursuing a course of instruction less distinctly religiouB. 

Sin is not a frequent topic of pulpit discourse. Much less 80 than 
formerly. More Is done to bring Christ down to the level of men than to 
bring men up to the level of Christ. The preference of people is to be let 
alone. No one objects to having truth dramatized, but to have truth 
preached is different; that is, if it Is preached in the spirit of the text, "If 
ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." 

There is willingness enough on the part of people to have truth rep- 
resented in a way to stimulate the intellect and to warm the heart, but 
not to prick into the conscience. We like as much goodness as we have, 
but are not ambitious to be better than we are. We are more disposed 
to accept Christ as one who will save us in our sins than as one who will 
save us from our sins. Which means, if frankly expressed, that Christ is 
mostly a superfluity; that it is not literally true that we need any sav- 
ing, that what Christianity substantially amounts to is that it is a divine 
arrangement by which, out of the abundance of God's love and considera- 
tion for human fallibility and depravity, and the difficulty involved in 
getting rid of depravity, we can be reckoned as good when we are not 

And because sin is dealt with, by the modern pulpit, with a delicate 
reserve not predicable of the great preachers of the Old Covenant nor 
of the great Apostles of the New, there has come to be a corresponding 
decline in the emphasis laid by the pew upon the personality of Christ 
and his redemptive function. It goes without the saying that a sense of 
Bin and a sense of moral helplessness go together. The intensity of the 
one comes and goes with the intensity of the other. Only the invalid who 
realizes the seriousness of his invalidism is moved to seek the ministra- 
tions of a physician. 

The preacher cannot exaggerate the grandeur of human nature aa 
that nature lay prefigured in the mind and purpose of the Creator, but 
that grandeur In no wise diminishes or neutralizes the significance of 
those antagonistic energies of the flesh which, strangely enough, are so 
easily able to hold man's native magnificence in subjection, and make 
the soul a plaything and a slave of the body. And till there has been 
begotten In the pew, under the direct handling of the situation by the 
pulpit, a realization of that enslavement, there will be developed no 
compelling consciousness of the need of an Emancipator. 

The majority of our clergymen, as well as of our laymen, are prob- 
ably believers in the general theory of evolution; but simple observation 
would seem to be sufficient to constrain us all to hold the doctrine in such 
way aa not to fall into error of supposing that what is bad can by procesB 
of unfolding develop into what is good. 

Things develop undoubtedly; that 1b the universal tendency; it Is 
part of the scheme of nature and of supernature; but they can develop 
downward as well as upward. Things can go on growing or they can 
go on rotting. It Is just aa much in the nature of a young apple, that 

ziii 



under certain conditions, it should become more and more decayed, as It 
Is that under other certain conditions it should become more and more 
rosy and luscious. St. James unconsciously confessed himself an evo- 
lutionist when he wrote, "When evil desire hath conceived it bringeth 
forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." 

It Is not the purpose of these paragraphs to discuss the doctrine 
of evolution, but only to assert that principle that only that which ia 
good can grow into what is better, while that which is bad tends, at the 
pressure of an inherent force, toward what is worse, so that only by the 
interference of a power above nature can nature's tendencies be with- 
stood and overcome. And out of that fact springs naturally the sugges- 
tion that a twentieth century preacher can only equal himself to the 
demands of existing conditions by making himself familiar with the 
thoughts that people, especially young people, are thinking upon such 
matters. This is a point that will offer itself for later consideration, if 
time shall permit. 

It will be, furthermore, a part of the preacher's practical handling 
of his congregation to rub into the consciousness of its members the fact 
that engaging their intellectual attention and enlightening them is of 
only subordinate value, and at most only a means to a remoter end. 
To say of one that he is an interesting preacher, or even that he Is an 
instructive preacher, may mean much, and may mean nothing at all. "He 
came that they might have life," says the Gospel of John, and light is not 
life, not necessarily. Mere illumination will not make a plant grow, nor 
restrain the leaves on the trees from decaying and falling to earth. 

A highly educated congregation is not to be dealt with in a manner dif- 
ferent from that to be pursued in addressing an uneducated one, except 
so far as the mode of address is concerned, but not so far as relates to its 
matter and the object had in view. 

One great difficulty involved in addressing cultivated listeners lies 
in the fact that if the discourse be what is called an ably constructed 
one, the enjoyment that they take, in feeling their own mental machinery 
moving responsively, they will suppose to be religious enjoyment. Ex- 
periencing the revolution of the wheels of our mentality is a pleasurable 
one always. And very often that is all that a person means when he says 
of his minister that he likes his preaching. If he understood himself bet- 
ter he would say that he is fascinated by his own cerebral activity. Or 
he may say that he likes his preacher because of the way that he put 
things; he is entertained by the preacher's intellectual agility. 

The same thing is true in the sanctuary as is true of the majority 
of attendants at a concert hall, who come away from the rendering of a 
celebrated violinist charmed, they say, with the music which he dis- 
courses, while the real fact in the case is that they are captivated by his 
digital dexterity, and were anxious to sit where they could see him, since 
it is with their eyes that they listened rather than with their ears. So 
in listening to a pianist, so in listening to a vocalist, who is certain to 
stir the house to tumultuous applause if she is able to bring her flight 
to a finish by lighting at sky-C. 

By making the pulpit the medium for dealing directly with people 

xiv 



with a view to promoting their more and more complete emancipation 
from Bin and sin's power, and by giving it to be definitely understood that 
that is the pulpit's prime mission, the pulpit has secured to It a character 
that differentiates it from every other appliance worked In the Interests 
of human uplift, and so creates for itself a clear place among the Instru- 
mentalities of progress. 

In this way it flatly meets the question, quite often proposed, and In 
many instances honestly proposed, What occasion is there for the mainte- 
nance of such an institution in addition to all other Influences that are 
being operated In man's behest, and operated with such an outlay of 
money, time and talent? It is a proper question to ask and one to which 
the pulpit, by the way in which it uses itself, and by the programme whose 
pursuance It publicly announces for itself and binds upon itself, should 
make a frank and sufficient reply. And that reply it furnishes by holding 
itself consistently and pronouncedly to the work of emancipating men in- 
dividually and collectively from the power of sin. In that field the pulpit, 
using the term in its comprehensive sense, stands practically alone. 

It is not a field that can be fairly said to be occupied by the press, 
certainly not the secular press. Its point of view if not irreligious, — as 
a good deal of It is, — is at any rate unreligious. If it chronicles events 
occurring in the religious world, it does it in a colorless way carefully 
inexpressive of any moral sympathy with that which the event may be 
supposed to import. 

There is no objection to be urged against this. It is proper and to 
the public advantage that each aspect of our many-sided life should have 
its Journalistic organs. 

Each class of matters is best treated by experts. St. Paul could not 
have made a success of the New York World, any more than Mr. Pulitzer 
could have creditably edited the Epistles to the Romans. This la no 
reflection upon either the deceased editor or the Apostle. 

This is not saying that our secular papers do not contain a vast 
amount of edifying material. Society would be poorer without them. 
They promote Intelligence by furnishing material for thought; they bring 
unrelated individuals into a kind of mutual touch, help to promote a 
sense of the solidarity or the race, and make each several man a sharer 
in the life and experience of the race. 

And still farther it is to be gratefully allowed that all of our best 
newspapers are fosterers of morality. But morality is not religion and 
does not carry in it even the flavor of religion's essence. 

As for our religious journals, not as much is to be said for most of 
them as It would be pleasant to say. Speaking broadly, they do not make 
large contributions toward the evangelizing of the world. It is a well- 
known fact, frequently Illustrated, that they are Individually so moribund 
that two or more have to pool their Issues in order to make one live 
thing. Another expedient is to court popularity by reducing to magazine 
form and padding with secularlty. 

This Is said in all respect to such few papers as continue to be in 
fact what they are in their claims, and serve as a kind of legible pulpit, 
presenting Christianity In its essence and with a combination of intelli- 

xv 



gsnce and piety that commands respect. There are three elements essen- 
tial to the success of religious journalism, — three that are rarely found 
in combination, — an unlimited amount of capital, an inexhaustible supply 
of brain and a rich infusion of the evangelical spirit. 

The more amply, therefore, the pulpit fulfils its distinctive function as 
an implement of God for delivering the soul from the thraldom of sin, the 
more inadequate becomes the claim put forth by Sunday journalism that 
it brings to the reader thoughts that are as elevated in their tone, aa 
nutritive to the intellect, as what the pulpit brings to the listener, and 
phrased perhaps in terms more finished and cultivated in their diction 
than any of which the average preacher may be capable. 

No one will deny the literary, intellectual and possibly also the eth- 
ical claims of our best secular journals, especially in their Sunday issues, 
which, saving the coarse and flashy cartoons with which most of them 
are disfigured, are the choicest of the week. But even so, they are not 
constructed, and are not intended to be constructive, in a way to accom- 
plish what is properly the prime purpose of Christian preaching, viz., to 
hold the soul consciously in the presence of its God and thus to deliver it 
out of the power of the devil into a growing experience of divine sonship. 
Second only to the lusts of the flesh, Sunday journalism and the automo- 
bile are the worst enemies of sanctuary worship. 

Nor any more than the press does the stage cover the territory spe- 
cifically accorded to the pulpit. In an interview which it was my pleasure 
to have with Madame Bernhardt a year or two ago, one question which 
I asked her she failed to answer. She had told me that any inquiry I put 
to her she would reply to, but in one instance she was evasive, and very 
much to my regret, for I felt that her answer to that particular question 
would reveal a good deal to me as to the moral and religious attitude of 
the great actress. The inquiry to which I failed to receive a reply was 
this : "Do you give your preference to the pulpit or the stage considered 
as means of human uplift?" 

She is too bright and too experienced a person not to have a rather 
definite opinion upon a question of that kind, lying so close as it does to 
the line of her own interest and pursuit. I have always wondered why 
it was that, communicative as she proved to be upon all other matters 
to which her attention was called, she was so reticent upon this. 

Even among distinctively church circles there has been during the 
last fifty years a decided change of opinion, or at least of usage, as 
toward the theater. Whether the truth of the case is to be stated by 
saying that change of sentiment induced change of usage, or change of 
usage induced change of sentiment, is a question about which opinions 
might differ. We know that in such matters people sometimes alter their 
customs and habits first, and then adjust their opinions to match. It is 
rather commonly the case that we shape our doctrines to fit our behavior 
rather than our behavior to fit our doctrines, and, having learned to allow 
ourselves modes of living and doing that conscience would at one time 
have forbidden, turn around and fix over our doctrine in a way to satisfy 
the necessities of our altered and perhaps deteriorated behavior; for we 
do like to keep our conduct and our creed somewhere in sight of each 

xvi 



other, whether by prodding the one or curbing the other. This is not, 
however, to be taken as a critique upon the theater, for that which the 
theater has to offer — assuming of course that it is untainted — undoubtedly 
meets a legitimate demand, in that it ministers refreshment that is 
rational without being mentally wearying and that is diverting without 
being sensuously debasing. 

All of this, however, is simply preliminary to my confident conten- 
tion that except in the very rarest instances are people made either finer 
in their piety or even purer in their morals by what is offered them by 
the stage. A man is not religiously nor morally bettered by any influence 
that does not tend to some sort of moral or religious action, and that is 
a result which, judging from observation and from experience, is not 
predicable of dramatic exhibition. The whole movement upon the boards 
is maintained in an unsubstantial atmosphere of make-believe. A suc- 
cessful actress, who consulted me in regard to certain matters that 
touched closer to the line of actual living than those that were traversed 
by her own dramatic experience, once said to me, "That which you say is 
probably true but I have lived so long and so constantly in the realm of 
the unreal that I am not able to discriminate between what is true and 
what is false." 

A whole audience may be brought to sob with tender emotion without 
a single member having his heart permanently softened into a condition 
of finer altruism. Tears wrung from the eyes by fictitious sin or fictitious 
sorrow neither spring from the heart nor soak back into the heart in 
gracious irrigation. 

The preacher of today has to address himself to people who are in 
almost every respect in a condition of unsettlement and revolt, and to the 
extent that he realizes that fact it will be one of his aims to secure in 
them quietness and establishment of mind. When we speak into a storm 
our voices will not carry. The pulpit today faces an attitude of denial. 
The age is a thoughtful one and if feeling produces among people rela- 
tions of convergence, thinking produces correspondingly a state of diverg- 
ence. People feel together, but think apart. The situation, so far forth, 
is a wholesome one, but it is a difficult one to face. It is better to be a 
sincere heretic than to go stumbling along under the burden of a barren 
tradition. It is better to think wrong than not to think at all. 

At the same time, while there is a stimulus in speaking to a congre- 
gation made up of men and women who think that there is not in address- 
ing a crowd of intellectual dummies, or an assembly of such people as the 
preachers of fifty or a hundred years ago had to address, who in all mat- 
ters of Christian doctrine expected the parson to do their thinking for 
them, and during his ministrations patiently slept out of confidence in his 
doctrinal Infallibility, yet the altered situation subjects the preacher of 
the present to a strain that while stimulating is also perplexing. 

Prophetic authority may be considered as a qualified preacher'B pre- 
rogative; but it still remains a fact that in these days the people in the 
pews are slow to believe a thing Is true simply on the strength of the 
preacher's Ipse dixit. It will not be true to them because he says it Is 
true. So far forth, he Is the prisoner In the dock and they are the jury, 

xvii 



and after the service is over and the benediction pronounced they will 
gather about their respective dinner tables and bring in their verdict. 

As things are, very little will be accomplished by any direct attempt 
to refute existing errors of opinion, certainly not if they are errors that 
are sincerely entertained, as very likely they are. There is, however, an 
underlying basis of orthodoxy in every man's soul. It is at that point 
that the preacher has to put in his work. The foundations of our nature 
are not laid in the false but in the true. The constitutional veracity latent 
in the human is our one available point of access. 

To whatever extent error may have developed, fundamentally we are 
not fools. However far inward depravity may have pursued its corro- 
sive course, we are not totally corrupted. Unless a man has ceased to 
be human there still survives in him a spot, a residuum of original iound- 
nesB. And it is that spot really that does the only effective homiletical 
work. Every man has to be his own preacher. The testimony of his own 
soul is about the only testimony that he puts unreserved confidence in. 

A man cannot be argued, nor argue himself, out of what he himself 
personally testifies to. What I know, I know, even if it is something that 
I do not like to know. It was when the prodigal come to himself that 
were constructed in him the beginnings of a new life. It was when 
Nathan had succeeded in penetrating to the original David and in making 
David reason with himself, that he gained the object, and gathered the 
fruits of his discourse. 

Sin can be resolved into environment and heredity till the sinner has 
been forced to forget his surroundings and his ancestry and to look 
straight into his own eye, and his consciousness has become definitely 
and exclusively self-consciousness. And, in general, the preacher will 
have accomplished the legitimate purpose of his sermon if he shall have 
succeeded in sending his hearers out of the church less mindful of the 
thoughts and phrases that have come to them from the pulpit, than they 
are of the discourse that is being delivered to them from the closer and 
more persuasive oracles of their own hearts. — Copyright 1913 Yale Uni- 
versity Press. 



xviii 



I. THE GOD BEHIND THK WORLD. 



"In the Beginning God." — Genesis 1:1. 
ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. Roberts, the noted English homilist, unfolded the Impli- 
cations of this verse along the following lines: 

I. "In the beginning God." 1. Thus would I solve all the prob- 
lems of life for time and eternity. 2. Thus would I remove all obsta- 
cles to genuine progress. 3. Thus would I overcome all doubts and 
fears, all dangers and diseases, all sin and death. 

n. "In the beginning God." God so recognized, so admitted, so 
accepted, so loved, so entirely trusted and obeyed in the beginning as 
to make sure of God all the way through and forever. 1. God in the 
beginning of life, so as to produce Samuel and John the Baptist. 2, 
God In the beginning of national life, and we have Christian America, 
3. Without God Peter and his partners fished all night and caught 
nothing. With God the Son as a volunteer partner in the business, 
though the best time for fishing had passed, they tried again and suc- 
cess was marvelous. 

4. "In the beginning God," and David the shepherd boy slew a 
lion, a bear, and the Philistine giant. Later in life David the king 
left the path of duty, left God, and defeat and disgrace and shame and 
remorse too awful to describe came upon him. 5. "In the beginning 
God," and Samson was invincible. Breaking his covenant connection 
with God, he becomes the blind slave of his enemies. What a con- 
trast! 

III. In the beginning of the day, God; in the middle of the day, God; 
in the end of the day, God; and all through the day, God. Sunrise, 
noonday, sunset, and midnight, God. With my eyes on the sun, the 
shadows all fall behind me. "I have set the Lord always before me; 
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." Psa. 16:8-11. 
"In the beginning God" was In Solomon's life. And the glory of his 
rise and reign, who can tell? Leaving God out, he tried everything 
under the sun, and all was vanity and vexation of spirit. In his sad 
retrospect he delivers a burning message to young men: "Fear God 
and keep his commandments, for this is the whole of man." "In the 
beginning God." 

* * * 

Dr. Joseph Parker treated It in this way: 

I. Man naturally asks for some account of the world In which 
he lives. The answer of the text as to the creation of the heavens and 
the earth is: 1, simple, 2, sublime; 3, sufficient. 

If God created all things, then (a) all things are under his gov- 
ernment; (b) the heavens and the earth may be studlod religiously; 
(c) It Is reasonable that he should take an Interest in the things which 
he created. 



2 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



II. Biblical theology teaches: 1, that creation is an expression 
of God's mind; 2, that creation may form the basis for the considera- 
tion of God's personality and character; 3, that God's word is its own 
security for fulfilment; 4, that the word which accounts for the exist- 
ence of nature accounts also for the existence of man. 

* * * 

Preaching on "God in Creation and Nature," Rev. Dr. Josiah Sib- 
ley used this introduction: 

One summer I was tramping through picturesque Marin County, 
just across the bay from San Francisco. By the side of the quiet 
stream, all at once, was borne upon the air an odor of such sweetness 
as far surpassed the customary redolent aroma of the woods. "What 
is that sweet perfume?" said I. "It is the sure sign of the azalea. 
Keep your eyes open and you will see it before long," replied my 
friend. Sure enough a turn in the pathway displayed a glorious spray 
of blossoms. The delicious atmosphere was sure evidence of unex- 
pected beauty not far away. So the pathway of the universe and ot 
life is filled with evidence of the unsuspected presence and purpose 
of God. These tokens, like the silken strand running through every 
genuine greenback, testify unseen purposes of life from God's stand- 
point that we never dreamed of. As the Damascus blade bears its 
maker's name, inwrought in its very metal, so God's directorship is 
witnessed in many an unsuspected turn of life and fortune. 

Take God from Nature and what would this universe be but con- 
glomerations of matter accidentally thrown together exhibiting its high- 
est forms of life as fighting, snarling, struggling creatures soon to pass 
into their original dust; blind worlds flying from the origin of an un- 
known past to the sure destruction of an unknown future. 

With God there how Nature is glorified. And God is there. Wher- 
ever is beauty or power or the working forward to a common end, there 
is God. "Conscience and law," says Dr. G. A. Gordon, "are not the whole 
of God; God is power, thought, beauty, the terrestrial and cosmic dis- 
position that on the whole favors life in this world." Every infinitesimal 
and tremendous exhibition of power in nature, every delicate tinting of 
an autumn leaf, is the echo of God's footsteps and the tracing of his 
brush. 

Not only is God stamped on everything in nature, but how con- 
stantly his unseen purposes reveal themselves on later pages as we read 
the book of nature. We have heard much in recent years of the neces- 
sity of guarding the coal deposits of Alaska. In prehistoric ages the 
frigid north basked in the sunshine of torrid heat and trees grew in tropic 
luxury where now only is found the icy dwelling of glaciers. What but 
the omniscience of a good God could have preserved all the stored up 
heat of the sun in the vegetable matter of those fat ages for the blessing 
of man in the far distant time of the future, when the face of the sun 
should not be so genial? Gold and silver and lead and iron in the fiery 
days of earth's formation little knew of their service to the generations 
of man in the distant ages of the future. But the great God girded them 
though they knew him not. Herodotus said, "Egypt is the gift of the 
Nile to Man." Livingstone and Stanley found that the melting of the 



THE GOD BEHIND THE WORLD 



3 



BnowB on the glorious mountains hidden in the depths of Africa was 
girded of God for the performance of transforming Egypt into a garden 
Bpot. Did you ever take that picturesque trip by boat down the San 
Joaquin River from Stockton to San Francisco? Do you remember the 
multitude of Tull islands that produce such marvelous crops of celery 
and potatoes? That fertility comes from the gathering of the flotsam and 
Jetsam in the reeds of the tuli plants. Who would have thought that 
worthless trash could serve such mighty purpose? 

Once the lightning and thunderbolts were but the playthings of 
cruel gods, according to man's imagination. But in the twinkling light 
of great cities, in the whir of machinery and in the rapid transit of 
vast multitudes is evidenced the long unsuspected purpose of the light- 
ning, harnessed as it is to bring a thousand blessings to man under the 
guise of electricity. In that terrible wreck of the Titanic how wonder- 
fully the unsuspected purpose of God was evidenced in the mysterious 
using of the very currents of air for the transmission of messages over 
the far distance. Thus do countless forces and phases of the material 
universe testify how the things of earth are thrilling with the un- 
thought-of things of heaven. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Creation (1). 

John Newton had a valued friend who ignored the Bible and Bald 
that all things came by chance. They were both great students of as- 
tronomy, and bo Newton devised a plan to make his friend feel ashamed 
of his "by chance" theory of creation. He had made for him an as- 
tronomical globe by one of the beBt artists of London under his specific 
direction, and had It placed in his library, where his friend was to meet 
him on a certain day to talk over astronomical facts. The globe ar- 
rested his attention at once, as a wonderful production of intellect and 
art, and he exclaimed: 

"Why, Newton, where in the world did you get that magical work 
of art and star knowledge?" 

"Oh," said Newton, ^ came into my library yesterday and here it 
was. It came entirely by chance, just to convince me of the truth of 
your theory of creation." 

Hla friend saw the point at once — how impossible it was, and if bo, 
how impossible that the heavens which declare the glory of God could 
have come by chance, if this human picture of them could only come 
by the design of a scholar and the expert work of the artist who made 
It. Aa a result he became an earnest Christian. — Selected. 

Sensing God (2). 

John Burroughs Is not. In the conventional sense of the term, a re- 
ligious man. But when he was in the Yosemlte Valley, where the 
Yosemite FallB burst on the view in their majesty as they tumble and 
plunge over the dizzy crags, he was heard in deepest reverence to 
whisper: "O, Almighty God!" He felt, perhaps Involuntarily, that he 
had touched the hem of the garment of creative glory. There are 
favored places amid nature's wonders, there are holy hours In nature's 
moods, when a vision of infinite glory awes and huBhes the human 



4 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



spirit as it hushed and awed the spirit of Isaiah in the temple. — Rev. 
O. H. Carmichael. 

In the Beginning, God (3). 

In Ocean Grove, N. J., at the foot of the broad pathway, where it 
Joins the boardwalk, there fluttered in the ocean breeze during the last 
summer a lofty white flag, bearing in large letters the simple inscrip- 
tion: In the Beginning, God. By day and by night, it carried the 
thoughts of passing multitudes back to the time when the mighty rest- 
less waves, still beating on the sands, fled back at the Creator's voice. 
A few years since, several eminent instructors and pastors of different 
branches of the Church walked to the extreme end of a projecting pier 
at Atlantic City in face of a violent wind storm. As the waves dashed 
high, they stood for a long time in silence, overawed. At length Dr. 
Schaeffer, the senior in the party, slowly said: "And yet — and yet — 
the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." — Selected. 

The Great First Cause (4). 

The cause must exist before the effect. However vast the scale on 
which the universe marks time, God is to be thought of as antedating 
the clock's first tick; and his eternity stretches away to infinity back 
of that. Halley's comet completes a great period of seventy-five years; 
but Donati's comet of 1858 visits us once in 2,000 years. Men are now 
ninety years old who remember Halley's comet in childhood; but the 
same men would be but infants on the planet Neptune, where a single 
year is 164 of those on earth. In that quadruple star, Epsilon Lyrae, in 
each pair the individuals perform their revolutions once in, say, one 
hundred years, but the pairs once in 1,000 years. The sun shoots 
through space at the rate of twelve miles a second, with a possible orbit, 
so Maedler believes, around Alcyone of the Pleiades; but nothing can 
yet show what millenniums must pass till it has completed a single revo- 
lution. "A thousand years in thy sight are as yesterday when it iB past, 
and as a watch in the night." 

God Before All (5). 

Motion requires a mover. There must have been a time when mo- 
tion began, before which there was no motion. There must have been 
a reason for motion beginning just then, no sooner, no later. Not only 
the earth, moon, and planets, but also the sun and "fixed stars" have 
been found to be in motion. Moreover, the motions of the universe are 
orderly, systematic, exact. If a ball come rolling through this room, 
It is obvious that some one threw it If one go tramping through a 
forest hitherto untrodden, as he supposes, by the foot of man, and he 
suddenly come upon a watch lying on the ground, which he finds to be 
"going," he knows that some one has been there before him, and only 
a little before. — Selected. 

Discerning God's Presence (6). 

Turn to the story of Charles Gordon at Khartoum, or John Law- 
rence in India, or James Chalmers, so gladly laying down his life for 
the men who murdered him in New Guinea, and you will find what it 



THE GOD BEHIND THE WORLD 



5 



means when we speak of the strength and possibility of the men who 
heard the voice of God, because they were ready so gladly to obey it. 
Is there any reason why you and I should not have the same privilege 
and the same blessing; or that our God should not be our constant 
friend, or that we should not know that he is never far from any one 
of us? — Stimsom 

The Divine Artist (7). 

It la most noteworthy that nature is a work of art. It might have 
presented an aspect ever dull, uninteresting, or even grotesque and hor- 
rible. That it has done bo in some localities only emphasizes the fact 
that art reigns elsewhere over the surface of the earth. Art implies 
an artist. Human art is but a copy of divine art. The human artist 
is a "seer," seeing art in nature, and imperfectly imitating it upon the 
canvas. But the most remarkable thing is that, even where man has 
Interfered with nature, by the felling of its trees and the cultivation 
of its fields, all unconsciously to himself he has been a "worker to- 
gether with God"; for, without any artistic purpose, he Is found to 
have left a tree, built a fence, plowed a field, or gathered a harvest, in 
such a way as to have produced an artistic result. Thus "working out 
his own salvation," he has also shown that "it Is God that worketh 
In him." — Selected. 

Accepting God's Account of It (8). For my part I am willing to 
accept God's account of what happened. He says, "In the beginning." 
If you can show me any man who has gone back of the beginning I shall 
be ready to listen to his arguments. — William Jennings Bryan. 

"The Eternal" (9). 

There Is a God adequate to meet man's needs, and the mind of man 
In Its superior moments cannot escape the sense of his presence. Clerk 
Maxwell said, "I have looked up many strange theories and have found 
that none of them will work without the intervention of God." In the 
height of the scientific storm of the last century Professor Tyndall 
delivered a famous address before the British Association of Science 
at Belfast, In which he swept away the foundations for faith in every- 
thing beyond the material world. Years after a friend asked him, 
"When at the bounds of things material what did you find?" He re- 
plied, "I stood before the Eternal." "Why, then, did you not say so in 
your Belfast address?" was the Inevitable question. And there came 
the slow reply, "It waB a great mistake !" — Rev. Henry A. Stimson, D. D. 



II. THE SPHERE OF INFLUENCE. 

"Am I My Brother's Keeper?" Gen. 4:9. 
ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. J. H. Tremont, D.D., said: I. Every man who comes within the 
sphere of my influence is my brother and has a brother's claim upon 
my loving sympathy and gracious ministries. 

When I say "Our Father who art in heaven," I confess judgment; I 
acknowledge the genuineness of the relationship and the validity of 
the claim. 

Christ linked us inseparably to these fatherhood and brotherhood 
claims, when he stated the great commandment, "Thou shalt love . . . 
God . . . and thy neighbor." 

All selfishness, indifference to other's welfare, securing personal 
advantage at other's expense, unjustifiable competition, industrial op- 
pression, wrongs and crimes against others, all war, are direct viola- 
tions of Christ's brotherhood code. 

All narrow prejudices, aroused by pride of culture, of wealth, of 
race, of sectarianism, re-echoes Cain's query, which was a sort of blas- 
phemy against human nature. The caste spirit is the spirit of Cain. 

II. Acknowledge these brotherhood claims and most of our social 
problems will find their solution. They are even more largely matters of 
sentiment than of wages or material demands. Industrial troubles 
began when employer and employee forgot their family ties and affec- 
tion, moved on to different streets and became arrayed against each 
other as "bobs and nabobs." 

The cross of Christ emphasizes the great brotherhood truth that, 
Just because a man has wealth and culture he is all the more under 
obligation to be the friend of the victim of poverty and illiteracy. 
Social and financial advantages, instead of bringing immunity from 
theBe claims, increase responsibility. 

* * * 

Archbishop Thompson said: I. This is an age of rights rather than 
of duties. It is very notable that there is almost nothing about rights 
In the teaching of Christ. The Lord seeks to train the spirit of his 
followers Into doing and suffering aright. But by preaching love and 
duty, the Gospel has been the lawgiver of nations, the friend of man, 
the champion of his rights. Its teaching has been of God, of duty, and 
of love; and wherever these ideas have come, freedom and earthly 
happiness and cultivation have followed silently behind. 

II. Our age needs to be reminded that In one sense each of us has 
the keeping of his brethren confided to him, and that love Is the law 
and the fulfilling of the law. The rights of men to our love, to our 
consideration, rest upon an act of divine love. Their chartered right 
to our reverence Is In these terms: That God loved them and sent 
his son to be the propitiation for their sins, and the Saviour set to it 
his seal and signed it with his blood. 



s 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
A Short Sermon on Brotherly Love (10). 

The following is translated from the French: 

You have only a day to spend here on earth; act in such a manner 
that you may spend it in peace. 

Peace is the fruit of love; for, in order to live in peace, we must 
bear with a great many things. 

None is perfect; each has his failings, each hangs upon the other, 
and love alone renders that weight light. 

If you can not bear with your brother, how will he bear with you? 

It is written of Jesus that, "having loved his own which were in 
the world, he loved them unto the end." 

For that reason, love your brother, who is in the world, and love 
him unto the end. 

Love is indefatigable; it never grows weary. Love is inexhaustible; 
it lives and is born anew in the living, and the more It pours itself out, 
the fuller its fountain. 

Whosoever loves himself hetter than he loves his brother, is not 
worthy of Christ, who died for his brothers. Have you given away 
everything you possess? 

Go and give up your life also if needed! 

Verily, I say unto you, the heart of a man that loves is a paradise 
on earth. He has God within him, for God is love! 

The wicked man loves not, he covets; he hungers and thirsts for 
everything; his eyes, like unto the eyes of a serpent, fascinate and 
allure, but only to devour. 

Love rests at the bottom of every pure soul, like a drop of dew in 
the calyx of a flower. Oh, if you knew what it is to love! 

Lincoln's Golden Words (11). 

We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it 
muBt not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, 
stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living 
heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus 
of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better 
angels of our nature. — Abraham Lincoln. 

Love and Hatred (12). 

There are trees in the tropics, on which white blossoms hang close 
by the withered fruit; there are days when the pale moon shows itself 
near the bright sun, and it is given to the soul of man to feel love and 
hatred, both at the same time, and to direct both to the same end. — 
Ebers. 

A Man's Kin (13). 
Blackstone estimated that the average man has 67,000,000 fourteenth 
cousins. 

"The Road of the Loving Heart" (14) 

While Robert Louis Stevenson's friend, Mataafa, one of the claim- 
ants for the throne in Upolo, was imprisoned by the powers along 
with other chiefs who had sided with him, Mr. Stevenson cheered their 



THE SPHERE OF INFLUENCE 



9 



captivity with numerous presents of comforts such as they prized. On 
their release they came to thank him, and declared they must com- 
memorate his kindness by some lasting work. So they decided to make 
a fine wide road to his house through the bush, a work involving great 
labor, a thing not loved by any Samoan, and despised as unworthy 
by a chief. In spite of all this, it was duly finished, and opened with 
a great feast under the name, "The Road of the Loving Heart." — Steven- 
son's Life. 

Team Work (15). 
In one of his addresses Mr. W. C. Pearce tells of being on the 
street in Chicago one day when a trolley car was held up for some time 
by a heavy wagon getting stuck on the track. Two span of horses 
vainly tugged to pull it off, but their efforts amounted to nothing, as they 
pulled alternately instead of simultaneously. After a little a teamster 
came along driving a compact team of bays. "Take off those horses," 
said he, "and let me have a chance at that load." The men laughed at 
him and said, "What can your team do when four horses have failed?" 
"Well," said he, "I'd like to have a try at it." Having hitched his team 
up to the load, he gently tightened the reins, and then quietly uttered the 
two words: "Steady — together." The horses responded by settling into 
their collars for a long, strong pull, with the result that the load moved, 
and the crowd cheered. 

The Roots of Brother Love (16). 
Emerson once said, "The arch-abolitionist, older than John Brown 
and older than the Shenandoah Mountains, is Love, whose other name 
is Justice, which was before Alfred, before Lycurgus, before slavery, 
and will be after it." That same Love and Justice, older than battle- 
ships or the brutality that wants them, is still here — was alive before 
wars began and will be after they are ended. — Rev. Henry M. Simmons. 

Our Neighbor (17). 
What, then, is our neighbor? Thou hast regarded his thought, his 
feeling, as somehow different from thine. Thou hast said, "A pain in 
him is not like a pain in me, but something far easier to bear." He 
seems to thee a little less living than thou; his life is dim, it is cold; 
it is a pale fire beside thy own burning desires. . . . So, dimly and 
by instinct, hast thou lived with thy neighbor, and hast known him not, 
being blind. Have done with this illusion, and simply try to learn the 
truth. Pain is pain, Joy is joy, everywhere, even as in thee. In all the 
songs of the forest birds, in all the cries of the wounded and dying, 
struggling in the captor's power; in the boundless sea where the myr- 
iads of water creatures strive and die; amid all the countless hordes of 
savage men; In all sickness and sorrow; in all exultation and hope, 
everywhere, from the lowest to the noblest, the same conscious, burn- 
ing, wilful life 1b found, endlessly manifold as the forms of the living 
creatures, unquenchable as the fires of the sun, real as these impulsea 
that even now throb In thine own selfish little heart. Lift up thy eyes, 
behold that life, and then turn away and forget it if thou canst; but. 
If thou hast known that, thou hast begun to know thy duty — Joslah 
Royce. 



10 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



Barriers (18). 

Barriers and prisons are of two kinds: There is a wall of stone 
In Sing Sing; it is a barrier. There is a sea around Patmos, the convict 
island; it is also a barrier. Dives dug a gulf between himself and his 
fellows; it was a barrier, and beyond that abyss he could not pass. 
With golden spade Dives dug that gulf and isolated himself, seeking 
an end named happiness; nature and God made the gulf to be fixed, 
and lo, the end was misery and pain. For the aristocracies of selfish- 
ness divide men, while the democracies of Jesus unite society in the 
interest of unity, growth, and happiness. — N. D. Hillis. 

They Helped Each Other (19). 

Good companions strengthen us to stand for truth and God. William 
Arnot relates that when going to school he had to cross the ford on the 
river Earn. When the current was strong the children used to take 
each others' hands, and so they passed safely through. They who are 
sorely tempted must find good companions or make them. Every 
Christian, man or woman, boy or girl, should have Christian comrades. 

Thoughts for Others (20). 

A queer old man once made a tea party for the little girls in town. 
When they had all come and were gathered in his front yard, he offered 
a doll for the most popular little girl, and asked them all to vote which 
should have the prize. But many of them did not know what "most 
popular" meant. So he told them it was the best-liked girl. Then they 
all voted, and Mary was the one who had the most votes and received 
the doll, though no one could say that she was either the prettiest or 
the cleverest of them all. "Now," said the queer old man, "I will give 
another doll to the one that first tells me why all like Mary the best." 
Nobody answered at first. But presently one of them spoke up and 
Baid: "It's because Mary always finds out what the rest of us want 
to play, and then says, 'Let's play that.' " — The Presbyterian of the 
South. 

"God Bless Him" (21). 

Concerning General Howard, Dr. F. E. Clark says: When first 
appointed in command of a regiment located at Governor's Island, he 
used to walk up and down Broadway, New York, where he was jostled 
in the crowds. This jostling pained and irritated him, as his arm had 
been amputated at the shoulder. In his fear that this irritation would 
sour his disposition he used to pray, as any one ran into him and hurt 
him, "God bless him!" This habit became such second nature with 
him that he was constantly praying for those about him. 

A Threshold Greeting (22). 
An Italian emigrant steamer, every available foot of its deck space 
crowded with sea-worn passengers, steamed into New York harbor, and 
was making its way up to a North River dock. Just in mid-stream a 
double-decked ferry boat, laden with commuters from New Jersey sub- 
urbs of the big metropolis, slowed up to allow the steamer to cross its 
bows. For a moment or two the commuters, most of them New York 
business men on the way to their offices, stared with cool indifference 



THE SPHERE OF INFLUENCE 



11 



at this shipload of peasant foreigners, many of them fresh from the 
slavery of Sicilian mines, others from the worn-out, tax-ridden fields of 
Calabria. In wonder, much as might so many round-eyed oxen, the im- 
migrants gazed at the prosperous looking inhabitants of the new land to 
which they had come. 

Then a young man on the upper deck of the ferry boat, prompted 
probably by nothing better than a spirit of fun, waved a newspaper. 
That wave did the work. Those two thousand voyage-wearied peasants 
understood. The careless waving of the newspaper meant to them a 
friendly welcome from the kinsfolk of their adoption; it meant a cheery 
greeting from the land of the free. And how they did respond. In an 
instant the crowded decks blazed with color, became alive with motion. 
A thousand gay-hued handkerchiefs were in the air, a thousand battered 
hats were waving. 

Across the narrow strip of water separating the two boats leaped 
the enthusiasm. It spread among the commuters. Cold indifference 
gave way to good-natured interest. Brokers, merchants, bankers, clerks, 
young women stenographers — all caught the spirit of the moment. Silk 
hats, derbies and white handkerchiefs were waved in answer to the 
salute of the poor immigrants. Between the two sets of passengers, 
of course, was still a wide social gap, but for a moment humanity 
bridged it clear and fair. — Youth's Companion. 

Contempt (23). 

The spirit of contempt is fatal to any endurable personal relations 
iO another, and every approach to this spirit is an obstacle to a better- 
ing relation. It is the worst of mistakes, therefore, to suppose that, 
as one's friendships become more intimate, they may become less truly 
reverent. The Intimacy of friendship is not measured by the number 
of privacies insolently invaded; and even the closest life relation may 
not spare the spirit of genuine respect and deference. The real friend 
will not demand; he only asks. The very highest fruit of friendship 
can hardly be withheld from the genuinely reverent spirit, whereas 
every trace of contempt embitters and degrades. — Henry Churchill King. 



III. A WALK THROUGH LIFE WITH GOD. 



"And Enoch Walked with God; and He Was Not; for God Took Him." 

Genesis 5:24. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

The significance of the name Enoch, according to Genesis, is "ini- 
tiated," or "initiating." He was initiated into the great secret of life; 
he had learned life's supreme lesson, that he who enters into and stead- 
fastly maintains right relations with God has solved the problem of true 
living. This is the Christian's secret of a happy life. The right spirit- 
ual adjustment of the soul means the right adjustment of all life's re- 
lations. 

He who Is "initiated," and he alone, is truly qualified for initiating 
others. The very first qualification of the minister, theological and semi- 
nary professor, Sunday School teacher, is the spiritual quickening and 
illumination of his own life. He must first have learned if he would 
successfully teach. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. Atkinson used the following outline: Few words are 
needed to describe the salient features of the majority of human lives. 
It Is not needful to write a volume to tell whether a man has spent a 
noble or a wasted life. One stroke of the pen, one solitary word, may 
be enough. 

I. Here is a life suddenly and prematurely cut short; for although 
Enoch lived 365 years, it was not half the usual age of the men of his 
day. 

II. Enoch's was a life Bpent amid surrounding wickedness. 

QL It was a life Bpent in fellowship with God. This expression 
"walked with God" has a very peculiar force. There Is in it the idea 
of strong persistence and determination. There is also the idea of 
progress. 

IV. Enoch's was a life of noble testimony. 

V. Enoch's was a life crowned by translation. His translation 
was: 1, a reminder to the men of his day that there was another state 
above and beyond the present; 2, an intimation of the final reward of 
the saints. The eternal life which was given to him will be granted, 
sooner or later, to every child of God. 

* * * 

Every Day Religion — This walking with God implies agreement, trust, 
friendship, progress in knowledge and holiness. Observe that Enoch 
"walked with God" without: 1. A Bible. Slaves to the letter. Interpret 
precept into practice. "Sermons in Btones, God In everything." 2. A 
church. Deduct church-going from our worship, and what la left? 3. The 
sacraments. Every meal should be a sacrament. 4. Saint-fellowship. 
Times of degeneracy and sin, when the child of God stands alone. 

Walking With God. 
I. It Is possible for man to walk with God. How la this 



14 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



brought about? The word Enoch means "trained," or "educated." Hli 
good training brought with it this happy state. 2. Enoch set himself 
apart purposely to walk with God. Of what importance is decision! 3. 
He was enabled to overcome all difficulties by means of faith. Faith, 
the source of all triumphs. 4. He not only exercised this faith for 
himself, but spent his life in doing good. He was "a preacher of right- 
eousness." 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Walking With God Is Salntllness (24). 
Dr. Arnold of Rugby gives in one of his letters an acco'unt of a 
saintly sister. For twenty years through some disease she was con- 
fined to a kind of crib; never once could she change her posture for all 
that time. "And yet," says Dr. Arnold, "I never saw a more perfect 
instance of the spirit of power and love and of a sound mind. Intense 
love, almost the annihilation of selfishness; a daily martyrdom for 
twenty years, during which she adhered to her early-formed resolution 
of never talking about herself; thoughtful about the very pins and 
ribbons of my wife's dress, about the making of a doll's cap for a 
child; but of herself — save as regarded her improvement in all good- 
ness — wholly thoughtless; enjoying everything lovely, graceful, beauti- 
ful, high-minded, whether in God's work or man's, with the keenest 
relish; inheriting the earth to the very fullness of the promise; and 
preserved through the very valley of the shadow of death from all fear 
or impatience, or from every cloud of impaired reason which might 
mar the beauty of Christ's glorious work. May God grant that I might 
come within but one hundred degrees of her place in glory." — Plerson. 

Keeping Step With God (25). 

"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which Is In heaven is 
perfect." Traversing one night a city street, I was startled by a sharp 
clanging above my head. On looking up, I found myself directly beneath 
the tower wherein a huge clock was striking the midnight hour. I took 
my watch from my pocket, and lo! the slender hands were pointing ex- 
actly to the hour of twelve. It scarcely seemed possible that that tiny 
piece of mechanism in my hand could keep time with the huge machinery 
that filled a whole room of the tower; but the proof was before me, and 
as I gazed at the two pairs of hands of such diverse proportions, I un- 
derstood as never before that the most insignificant human being needed 
only to be clean, in running order and divinely regulated to keep time 
with divinity itself — to be perfect even as the Father is perfect. — Se- 
lected. 

Dropping Behind (26). 

Professor Hugh Black, In "Christ's Service of Love," says: "A 
young Jewess who Is now a Christian asked a lady who had Instructed 
her in the gospel to read history with her, 'Because,' said she, T have 
been reading the Gospels and I am puzzled. I want to know when 
Christians began to be so different from Christ.'" 

Walking Through Trials (27). 
A well known minister wished to ascend a tower that commanded 



A WALK THROUGH LIFE WITH GOD 



15 



a fine view of the surrounding country. "Come this way, sir," said 
the guide, leading him to some steps which looked as though they led 
down into a vault. "But I want to ascend, not descend!" "This is the 
way up, sir." A few steps down led to many steps up. He reached the 
top, and a fine panoramic landscape lay stretched before him. So our 
guide leads us down that he may lead us up to those heights of vision 
and power prepared for those who honor him. — S. S. Chronicle. 

Whose I Am, and Whom I Serve (28). 
"I belong to the King." So read the legend on the collar of a little 
terrier which followed King Edward's bier. He was a mere dog, and 
not beautiful at that. But he had been loved by a king, had lain on a 
king's knee, had entree to royal apartments which the best accredited 
visitors might not enter. Many the affectionate glances he received 
as he trotted soberly in the funeral cortege, bearing this legend: "I 
am Caesar; I belong to the King." Thus many a lowly disciple has 
found himself exalted. Even humble service is worth while when one 
belongs to the King. Christ came to create this sense of relationship 
in us, to help us know ourselves as belonging to his Father. What 
temptations would be mastered, what bitterness accepted without com- 
plaint, what harsh words choked, what defilements indignantly repudi- 
ated, if in moments of stress we could say: "I belong to the King!" — 
George C. Peck. 

Wholly God's (29). 
When General Booth was asked what had been the secret of his 
success, he replied: "I will tell you the Becret — God has had 
all there was of me. There have been men with greater brains than 
I, men with greater opportunities, but from the day I got the poor of 
London on my heart, and a vision of what Jesus Christ could do Tor 
them, I made up my mind that God should have all of William Booth 
there was; and if anything has been achieved, it is because God has all 
the adoration of my heart, all the power of my will, and all the Influ- 
ence of my life." — Selected. 

Knowing God as a Friend (30). 

All great men of the historic past emphasize the doctrine of a per- 
sonal God — the God of infinite love. 

There Is Socrates talking to his protecting genius, and Demosthenes 
Invoking the inspiration of the immortal gods. Daniel Webster was 
once asked: "What is the greatest thought you ever had?" Said the 
mightiest of American orators: "The greatest thought I ever had was 
that of my personal responsibility to a personal God." 

God's personality of divine love is the genius and Inspiration of 
all history. The Institutions that are evolving through human conceit 
are like the pageant of the theater — you gaze upon it till the scene 
changes, and then It Is gone. But God is the divine dramatist of su- 
preme love. 

The problem of religion is reunion with God, and the problem of 
God Ib the reception and understanding of his marvelous love. That 
God Is, Intelligent men have always and everywhere believed. Human 
IntultlonB and actual experience have given the lie to the dreary nega- 



16 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



tions of a speculative atheism. Man has been theistic, but in one sense 
alone he has been agnostic. He has been largely and seriously ignorant 
of the character of God. If he has been certain that God is, he has 
been uncertain what God is; if he has been certain of God's existence, 
he has been in doubt as to his attributes. We are to believe, with a 
settled and progressive faith, in the impartiality and universality of his 
love. Here is the solution of the world's doubt, here is the answer to 
the deepest and most anxious question of our hearts. While traveling 
through hell, Dante was cheered when, looking through pitchy clouds 
he saw a star. The Christian has the star of God's love ever above him. 
This love-star is the guide and solace of every weary traveler in a 
storm-tossed and sinful world. — Bentley. 

An Opportunity for Better Acquaintance (31). 

It is only Jesus who can say: "I am the light of the world; he that 
followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light 
of life." 

When that true light has shone upon a human soul, the soul may in 
truth reflect something of the divine upon the world yet in darkness. 
So Jesus said: "Ye are the light of the world." So much of Jesus as 
may be seen in the humanity of his disciples is indeed the glimpse that 
the world may have of the Deity, who has chosen to reveal himself in 
humanity. But the world that would see God must look for him re- 
vealed, first of all, in his own Son, whose life and light the truest dis- 
ciple can only reflect. 

The thought of the world's need of the true light must stir the dis- 
ciples of Jesus to such a dwelling in his light, such a receiving and 
absorption of his revelation of God, as may make them living witnesses 
of the whole truth set forth in their Master. So the half truth of those 
who find their only reflection of Deity in human souls may lead them 
to see the true light and, rejoicing in it, to have life. — The Presby- 
terian. 

Letting God Rule the Life (32). 

At the Nashville Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement, 
the Rev. W. M. Forrest, formerly of Calcutta, told of a young man he 
had met in India, who, after his conversion to Christianity, had been 
harshly treated and cruelly persecuted, his wife and little child taken 
from him, and his home closed upon him. Yet for seven years he had 
faithfully preached the gospel of Jesus until body and mind began to 
weaken and the light of reason began to waver. One night, altogether 
beside himself, he had gone out into the night, and Mr. Forrest fol- 
lowed him. There in the moonlight, beating his head against the earth, 
according to the manner of the heathen, he found the young fellow, 
and the thought came to him, "Is it possible that in his frenzy he has 
gone back to the worship of his old-time god?" But on drawing closer 
he saw him lifting his clasped hands to the darkness, and with tears 
streaming down his cheeks, the choking words of his prayer were 
heard distinctly, and this was his cry: "I have made Jesus King, I have 
made Jesus King." There was a man faithful even unto the death. — 
S. S. Times. 



A WALK THROUGH LIFE WITH GOD 



17 



Christ Desires Our Companionship (33). 

Christ desires our companionship, as he has daily been the delight 
of his Father and associated in all his operations (Prov. viii. 30; John 
xvli. 4, 5, 24). He regards us with complaisance. There is in us no 
good thing, but he has already given us of his graces, and will change 
us into his image from glory to glory. He is the brightness of the 
Father's glory; and he delights in our obedience. It is very imperfect; 
but he notices our will and effort to do good, our resistance of tempta- 
tion, and our patience under crosses and afflictions. His Father loved 
him because he was obedient unto death. 

Nothing can separate us from this love of Christ. But we must be 
conscious of it and respond to it, "Continue ye in my love." Desire 
close intimacy with Christ. Seek conformity to his image, and crave 
his approbation in every act "Well done, good and faithful servant, 
enter into the joy of your Lord." — J. A. Hodge. 

Renewing the Walk Each Morning (34). 
Oh! that our new-born piety every morning might match with our 
new-born "mercies!" Oh! that we could perceive, each morning, all 
the dear faces that meet us — the familiar affections, and all that nature 
paints, and all the happiness which bestrews our path — and all God's 
forgiveness, and all God's favors, and promises, and God's presence — 
as "new" things to be taken, to be studied, to be admired, to be echoed 
back in praises and homage — just as a star new created! A creation! 
a creation for me! We shall best take our reflection of God, and be like 
him, if we are always trying to go on, every day, to some "new" thing; 
some "new" attainment in the divine life; some "new" work done and 
dedicated to him; each "new" morning finding its echo in a "new" trait 
of holiness! And, oh! what a standard we should set! To what heights 
we should reach before the year is over! — J. Vaughan. 

No False Steps (35). 
"Sincere and without offense." The word translated "sincere," 
Donnegan tells us in his Lexicon, is a combination of two words which, 
taken together, mean "found pure and unadulterated when examined 
In the sun; cleansed from heterogeneous parts by exposure to its rays.'" 
It means, therefore, proved by sunlight. The derivation of the other 
words, "without offense," is equally significant. It is in Greek one word, 
meaning "to jolt or to strike the foot against; to make a false step." 
sincere and without offense. He whose actions will stand the test of 
the sunlight of God's truth and the scrutiny of him who is light, and In 
whom dwelleth no darkness at all; he who shall so walk as not to mako 
a false step himself or cause others to stumble over him, must approach 
vrry near the standard of a perfect man. See Psalms 1 and 15. — Se- 
lected. 



IV. SAVED BY FAITH. 



"And He Believed In the Lord; and He Counted It to Him for Right- 
eousness." Genesis 15:6. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT^ 

In preaching upon this righteousness which God imputes to the be- 
liever when he sees his faith, Spurgeon said: Now, if I wished to test 
you all, and might ask you only one question, I would ask this: What 
is your righteousness? Now come along in single file. What is your 
righteousness? O, I am as good as my neighbors. Go along with you; 
you are not my comrade. What is your righteousness? Well, I am 
What a lofty Ideal of Christian character the two combined present — 
saith the Lord." I can forgive all those other minor things, if you san 
rather better than my neighbors, for I go to chapel regularly. Off with 
you, sir; you do not know the watchword. And you next; what is 
your righteousness? I have been baptized, and am a member of the 
church. Yes, and so you may be; and if that is your hope, you are in 
the gall of bitterness. Now, you next; what is your hope? O, I do all 
I can, and Christ makes up the rest Rubbish! You are a Babylonian, 
you are no Israelite; Christ is no make-weight — away with you. Here 
comes the last. What is your righteousness? My righteousness is 
filthy rags, except one righteousness which I have, which Christ wrought 
out for me on Calvary, imputed to me by God himself, which makes me 
pure and spotless as an angel. Ah, brother, you and I are fellow- 
soldiers; I have found you out; that is the watchword. "Your right- 
eousness is of me, saith the Lord." I do not ask whether you are 
Churchmen, or whether you are Methodists, or Independents, or Bap- 
tists, If you do but know this watchword — "Your righteousness is of me, 
saith the Lord." I can forgive all those other minor things, if you can 
sing— 

"Jesus, thy blood and righteousness, 
My beauty are, my glorious dress." 

Tell me you have got any other trust, and I will have nothing to do 
with you. Tell me you can work out your own salvation, and I will 
not acknowledge you for a brother. But if you tell me that from first 
to last you rely on Jesus, then I acknowledge you as a fellow-soldier; 
and I am glad to see you wherever I meet you. 

Abraham Believed God. 

1. Whom elB© should we believe with reference to the things of 
the spiritual world? "To whom shall we go; thou hast the words of 
eternal life." 

2. Why should we not believe him? His trustworthiness has been 
proven again and again. 

3. All of his attributes call for our faith. Omnipotent, omniscient, 
■IMort&Si 



20 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Faith in the Pulpit (36). 
The main trouble with the church today is not in the pews, it is 
in the pulpit. There is more Christian faith in the average congregation 
than there is in the average preacher. During the short period of Emer- 
son's pastorate, he was obliged to call on an old man who was dying. 
The young minister murmured apologetically a number of confused and 
clumsy commonplaces, and finally his aged client cried sharply, "Young 
man, if you don't know your business, you had better go home." Emer- 
son, who came to give advice, took it, like the honest and sincere man 
that he was; and he had no peace until he left the church for good 
and all. He was totally unfitted to be a minister because he had no 
Christian faith, and as soon as he realized his unfitness, he sought 
another occupation, and became enormously useful to humanity in other 
ways. 

A United States Senator met three clergymen in three different 
parts of the country, and each complained that he could not get a large 
audience. The Senator asked the first man if he believed that the 
Bible was the word of God; the cleric smiled pityingly, and said that 
of course he did not in the crude and ordinary sense, and then he 
launched a mass of vague metaphysical phrases. 

The Senator asked the second man if he believed in the future life, 
and the reverend gentleman said that he did not believe in personal 
immortality, but that the essence of life was indestructible, or some 
such notion. 

The Senator asked the third man, a pastor of an orthodox evangeli- 
cal church, if he believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ; the shepherd of 
souls replied that all men were divine. The three clergymen had them- 
selves supplied abundant reasons why their audiences were small. They 
had nothing to offer them but wind. The hungry sheep looked up and 
were not fed. — William Lyon Phelps. 

Faith and Feeling (37). 

I was preaching in Manchester, England, some years ago. One 
Sabbath afternoon, I was short of workers, and there were a good many 
inquiring the way of Life. I took some into the first gallery, and after 
I had spoken five or ten minutes, a gentleman came up, a business man, 
and stood on the outskirts of the company. 

"My friend, are you not a Christian?" 

"No. I wish I was," he replied. 

"Then," I said, "I'll speak to you and try to make the way plain to 
you, and if you can see it, perhaps the others may see it." 

I addressed my remarks to him. After I had used one or two illus- 
trations, I said, "Now, do you see it?" 

"No. It is not clear. It doesn't help my case." 

I gave a number of other passages. "Does that make it plain?" 

"No. That doesn't help my case." He was like most people who 
think their case a peculiar one. 

I gave another and another illustration. Then he said, "The fact is 
that I can't feel that I'm saved." 

I said, "Was it Noah's feelings that saved him, or the ark?" 



SAVED BY FAITH 



21 



"Good evening, Mr. Moody. It's all settled." And away he went. 

I believe in quick work, but that was too quick for me. I won- 
dered if the man did really see it. The next day I was looking for my 
"ark man." He wasn't around. One afternoon I was going down the 
back stairs of the Free Trade Hall of Manchester, and there wasn't 
much light. A man tapped me on the shoulder, and asked: 

"Do you remember me?" 

"I remember that voice, but I can't locate it," I said. 
"Do you remember the man in the ark?" 
I answered, "I've been looking for you." 

He said, "That settled it all at once. I've been trying to save my- 
self by my feelings, and trying to make an ark of my feelings, but the 
moment you spoke of the ark, that settled it" He continued: "Mr 
Moody, always tell of the ark." — Moody. 

Only Believe (38). 

There will be many whose whole experience will be merely this: 
that, hungry, needy, empty, wanting a Saviour, they just heard a voice 
from heaven telling them that the Saviour whom they needed had come, 
and they just went to him and found him all they wanted, and then 
like the poor shepherds, "made known abroad" to other men all that 
had come to them. — Phillips Brooks. 

Simple Faith (39). 

In that marvelous book, "Twice Born Men," one of the chapters is 
entitled, "The Lowest of the Low," and that is the name given to the 
man whose story is told in the chapter. His mother was a drunkard, 
his father was dead. When he was a baby his mother used to take him 
to the public house, and to keep him quiet she would dip her finger in 
the glass of gin and rub it across his lips, so that before he could walk 
he had the taste for strong drink. When he was but a little boy he 
was staggering drunk upon the streets of London. Besides being a 
drunkard, he was a thief. He was all that was bad. 

In his young manhood he became a soldier in the British army, 
and while there he broke the laws of the army and was sentenced to 
prison. When he came out of prison he was discharged from the army 
in disgrace, and he then drifted into the very lowest depths of iniquity 
and sin. Finally, when he could bear his burden no longer, he came to 
the Salvation Army hall to listen to the hymns. He heard the testi- 
monies, and he listened to the officer who stood upon the platform 
asking poor lost men and women to turn to Jesus. One night in the 
midst of a great crowd of fallen men like himself, he rose up and stag- 
gered to the penitent form. Dropping down on his knees, he buried his 
face In his hands, and said, "God be merciful to me, a sinner," and quick 
as a flash he was changed. 

At once he began to seek for his old mother. At last he found her. 
When he entered the room whore she lived, he found It little better 
than a hovel. He walked across the room, and putting his arms around 
hlB mother, he kissed her, and said, "Mother, I have come to take you 
back to the home I have prepared for you." She would not believe 
him. Her mind had become affected by her Bin, but she went, pleased 



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as a girl. In God's own good time her mind was restored, and to this 
day in the city of London, she sits by her son's side, a changed woman, 
and presides at his table. When the people say to him, "What does It 
all mean?" He always makes this reply, "God gave me another chance." 
Oh, what a salvation, what a Saviour! I know if he can save that man, 
he can save me. — Chapman. 

Faith Not Works (40). 

We are not saved for the good that we have done. Our salvation 
depends solely upon the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Dr. John B. 
Devins told of a man who dreamed that he constructed a ladder from 
earth toward heaven, and whenever he did a good deed his ladder went 
up two feet; when he did an unusually good deed his ladder went 
higher; when he gave away large sums of money to the poor it went 
still higher. After a while it went out of sight, and as the years rolled 
on he expected at his death to step off that ladder into heaven. But 
in his dream he heard a voice thunder from the skies: "He that climb- 
eth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber." Down the 
man came, ladder and all; and he awoke. He realized then his mistake 
and sought salvation in the only way — faith in the atoning work of 
Jesus Christ. — Selected. 

Faith is Possible (41). 

The command to believe is not a mockery, but a command, because 
it is possible for every man to believe if he will. It is not possible for 
us to understand everything or even to understand any thing fully, but 
it is possible for us to face the light and not the darkness. So Plato 
taught in regard to immortality twenty-three centuries ago. One should 
believe in it because that faith was so much better than the other. 
And so Christ said, "If any man wills to do the will of God he shall 
know of the doctrine, whether I speak from God or whether I speak of 
myself." — Corwin. 

Believing In Spite of Appearances (42). 

The "Letters of Marcus Dods" tell of his bitter experience in en- 
during more than five years' waiting between his being licensed by the 
Presbytery and getting a church. In one of these letters he likens 
himself to the cripple at the Pool of Bethesda who, when the Angel 
gave healing virtue to the water, was unable because of his handicap 
to avail himself of his opportunity. But, says Dods significantly, "One 
thing I did not do, I did not throw mud at the Angel." In other words, 
he did not gird at circumstances, nor fling gibes at the omissions of 
Providence. With every fibre of his brain and will did he dig into the 
ores of knowledge, saying to himself: "A church I may never get, 
but if I do, I will be ready for the church." And when waiting had 
done its work, Providence opened up to him the mighty purpose for 
which he had been girded. The God who kept Marcus Dods waiting 
those trying years was the God who made him "chief among the 
brethren." 

If we can wait, as well as do; if we bring the fire and the wood, 
God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering. Believe this, and be- 
lieving, leave the final issue with him. 



SAVED BY FAITH 



23 



Faith It the Victory That Overcomes the World (43). 

In "Twice Born Men" the author tells of a Salvation Army officer 
who was known as the "Angel Adjutant." One day In her wander- 
ings through the slums she came to a man who was known as "Old 
Born Drunk." This man used to go into the factories, selling little 
sheets of paper giving the betting news from the public houses round 
about. The Angel Adjutant had always been accustomed to sinful men, 
but she says until she saw him she did not realize the hideous and 
repulsive abomination to which vice can degrade. This man was the 
child of drunken parents. He was conceived and born while his par- 
ents were mad with drink. When he first opened his eyes they taught 
him to drink. When but a baby boy he used to sleep off his drunken 
stupor. When a boy able to walk he used to stagger through the streets 
in an Intoxicated condition. He was short and thick-set in stature, mis- 
shapen in face and form. One day the Angel Adjutant met him, and 
looking into his old, sin-scarred face, said, "You don't look very happy." 
He made no response. She came a little closer, and said again, "You 
don't look very happy." Still no response. She came closer still, and 
putting her hand upon his shoulder, said, "I would like to help you. I 
love Jesus. Jesus loves you," and there was a trace of a tear in his eye. 

She found out where he lived, and she went into his home that was 
vile in the extreme. His wife was as a great a drunkard as he. They 
had a Bon, but this little boy was kept away from the home, so that he, 
too, might not become a drunkard. One night they made their way, at 
the request of the Angel Adjutant, to the Salvation Army meeting. 
They heard the testimonies, and, still drunk, they staggered to the peni- 
tent form, and got down on their knees. A man called Joe had jusi 
risen to give a testimony, and "Old Born Drunk" knew him. And while 
still on his knees the man called out, "Oh, Jesus, I would like to be 
like Joe." Then turning his face to his wife, he said, "Do you think 
I could ever be like Joe?" And the Angel Adjutant, coming nearer, 
said, "Jesus can make you like Joe." And the old man rose up, stag- 
gering from weakness, and said, "Then I will take him." His life be- 
came perfectly beautiful, though his temptations were terrific. One 
day his business called him to a public house, and the men there 
tempted him to drink. When "Old Born Drunk" refused to take the 
liquor they Jeered and mocked him. But he was unmoved and said to 
the Angel Adjutant later, "I am without flaw." Faith made him the 
victor over temptation. 

Why Men Fall to See Visions (44). 
I once heard the great orator of the nineteenth century make a 
speech in which occurred a passage which Is now quoted as classic; 
and talking about it afterwards with one who was present at the meet- 
ing, he answered quite frankly, "I was not listening at the moment; 
the truth Is, I was calculating how much machinery the building would 
hold."— Shepherd. 



V. THE DIVINE PRESENCE. 



"Certainly I Will Be With Thee." Exodus 3:12. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
Rev. Dr. J. H. Jowett in preaching on "Our Unseen Allies," said: 
Turn to these co-operative allies. When the sower casts his seed into 
the ground other hands lay hold of it. When we do our work in the field 
of the kingdom glorious allies take up our work, and they are con- 
tinuing and perfecting our ministry. Who are these allies? 

I. There is the Almighty and Eternal God. Recall some of the ways 
by which his ministry is described in the Scriptures. There is a favor- 
ite name by which he is known. He is spoken of as the Spirit, the 
Breath of Life. Here is a name significant of an atmospheric influence, 
a Presence that creates a fruitful, moral climate. We know the quick- 
ening or the paralyzing influence of the spirit of man upon man. The 
spirit of man can have a most deadening influence upon the thoughts 
and purposes of others, or it can minister to their strength. Now, God's 
spirit works upon the field of Christian service like an all-pervasive and 
influential air. Sometimes that Spirit is invigorative, quickening, and 
the sacred Beed is vitalized and nutrified. The seed of truth we sow in 
the soil of man's mind is kept alive; memory retains the holy thing. 
But sometimes the breath of the Lord is destructive, meeting with 
deadly hostility the secret enemies of the truth. We are told that there 
are certain bacteria whose presence in the soil is destructive to the 
life and growth of the seed, and the aim of the agriculturists is to get 
rid of these bacteria, so that the incipient life may have a favorable 
way. And there are evil bacteria in the souls of men, and they are 
hostile to the seeds of truth. God's destructive breath is our ally in 
the business of harvest. These pests wither "because the Spirit of the 
Lord bloweth upon them." We have a mighty ally in the deadly breath 
of God. 

II. But we have not only our supreme ally in God. We have also, 
through God, mystic and invisible ministers always working in the field 
of the Kingdom. Everywhere in the Scriptures these ministers are 
busily active in the affairs of men. When we are resting they are toll- 
ing; when we are Bleeping they are at work. Their ministry Is like 
that of Ariel in The Tempest, a mysterious, Invisible friend, binding 
evil and emancipating good. "He will give his angels charge over thee." 
"The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.'" 
"There stood by me this night the angel of God." "Are they not all 
ministering spirits Bent forth to minister to them that establish the 
ways of salvation?" 

III. Now, In the face of all this, what shall we do? Do not let us as- 
sume that when we stop working the work itself stops; that when the 
sower has gone to sleep everything else is at rest. In all our work In 
the different fields — In the field of the family, of education, of social 
eervice, in all the crusades for the enrichment of political freedom, In 
all our means to proclaim tho glory and sovereignty of the Prince of 



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Peace, let us assume that we have mighty allies at our side. Let us 
quietly and strongly believe it. We shall not work the less intensely, 
but rather with greater confidence, and with vastly multiplied force. 
We shall not move about the field with the nervousness of those who 
fear defeat or failure, but with the magnificent confidence of those who 
know their holy strength, for whom the scent of the harvest is in the 
air, and who already see the reaper bringing in the sheaves. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

The Secret of Strength (45). 

What made Jesus Christ so brave and strong? Was it not this, 
that he was always seeing God? We think it strange that Jesus could 
stand so bravely before the Pharisees and the Romans and feel no fear. 
Was it strange, if the Father was closer to him than the Romans and 
Pharisees all the while and hid them from him; if the trumpets and 
the chariots upon the mountains were so loud in his ears that he could 
not hear the clatter of the hosts upon the plains? Our Pharisees are 
so much nearer and closer to us than our Father. The secret of cour- 
age is so simple after all. — Phillips Brooks. 

Realized Littleness and Appropriated Greatness (46). 

Caesar tells of the contempt with which the Gauls regarded the 
little men Rome sent against them, and of their wonder that these little 
men built such large machines. But little men are likely to feel their 
need of the help of machines. Their sense of weakness quickens their 
inventive faculties. Rome's greatness began in her littleness. A little 
city in a position not very well suited for defense, and surrounded by 
enemies on every side, she was compelled to excel her neighbors in the 
art of war or perish. 

What happens in the great world happens in the little world, the 
individual life. In every great crisis the soul is aroused, the mind be- 
comes alert, the body itself seems possessed of new powers. The great- 
est crisis of life is failure, actual or imminent. When old resources 
fail and new powers must be found, the soul often finds itself possessed 
of resources it had not expected. So it happens that a hundred gen- 
iuses are born of adversity where one is born of prosperity. For a like 
reason the door of the kingdom of God is open to the poor In spirit — 
Selected. 

The Men Who See God (47). 

A recent writer has said that the classification of men with regard 
to religion will have to be changed soon. We shall not divide them into 
Catholics and Protestants, Churchmen and Dissenters, Presbyterians 
and Methodists, but into the men who see and the men who do not see. 
I ask a friend, Do you believe in God? and he is almost indignant at the 
question. But when I press him and get him to tell me something of 
this God, he describes to me the God of David, speaks of the God of 
Paul, grows eloquent over the God of covenanting or disruption times; 
or else he takes me into the distant future and speaks of the love and 
Joy and peace of heaven, when the shadows are gone and the night is 
fled away. But when I ask him, What is your life tonight? What of 



THE DIVINE PRESENCE 



27 



this city's Bin and cry tonight? I find that for the world's yesterday 
and for the world's tomorrow he believes, but for tonight he is an 
atheist. Once there were horses and chariots of fire, and there shall 
be again. But today there is nothing but the hills and moorlands, and 
the Assyrian army in the valley. Oh, it is very hard to see God in 
today. It needs an opening of the eyes, like Elisha's servant got, to 
catch the trend of the everlasting love in the petty transactions of the 
present hour. — G. H. Morrison, D. D. 

God and I (48). 

I plucked an acorn from the greensward, and held it to my ear, and 
this is what it says to me: "By and by the birds will come and nest 
in me. By and by I will furnish shade for the cattle. By and by I will 
provide warmth for the home in the pleasant fire. By and by I will be 
shelter from the storm to those who have gone under the roof. By and 
by I will be the strong ribs of the great vessel, and the tempest will 
beat against me in vain, while I carry men across the Atlantic." "O 
foolish little acorn, wilt thou be all this?" I ask. And the acorn answers, 
"Yes, God and I."— Abbott. 

When God Works With Men (49). 
God is present in human affairs. Instances, the Spanish Armada; 
Napoleon's campaign against Moscow, where, on "one memorable night 
of frost, twenty thousand horses perished and the strength of the French 
army was utterly broken." Here God used the snow and the cold, as he 
may have used the pestilence or the simoom to destroy Sennacherib. 
Victor Hugo attributes the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo to a few 
drops of rain, more or less, which In the early morning made the roads 
unfit for the movement of artillery. Providence, he thus claims, de- 
feated "the man of destiny." — Selected. 

Heavenly Reinforcements (50). 

There Is, as the fundamental power, the truth that God is: that 
the Almighty, the Jehovah, the Heavenly Father, now lives and works 
and loves. Perhaps we do not think of It often in this way. Yet, after 
all, it is the assurance of God's existence that is our deepest and final 
support. Cut It out from your life, and what have you but chaoB? 
Bring It Into your life, not as commonplace, but as a vital truth, and 
you have this, that as God is Truth, and Love, and Wisdom, you have, 
if you abide in God's presence, the whole power of Truth, Love, and 
Wisdom to back you. 

Again, there la the fact that the Son of God once walked this earth 
and that he lived a spotlesB life; and, having tasted for man all the 
sufferings and Ills common to men, and having conquered sin and death, 
now lives, and sitting on the right hand of the Father, is forever the type 
of the perfect humanity, and the Inspiration to all men to live as In his 
presence. Imagine for a moment, If you can, the facts and the power 
of the life of Jesus cut out, eliminated from history and modern civili- 
zation, and from the lives of men, and what have you of character and 
moral fibre and all that goes to make up the best of humanity? The 
fact of the Incarnation of the Son of God Is, however, a truth from which 



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the world has only begun to draw. There are infinite possibilities still 
unfathomed. The truth of the brooding of the Holy Spirit over the lives 
of men, and of his waiting to touch them with the fire of divine love, 
has hardly yet been explored. There are, too, those mysterious beings 
and powers, ten thousand times ten thousand angels and archangels, all 
ministering spirits. Whatever your theory may be about them, they 
stand for heavenly, spiritual forces waiting to come to the aid of men. — 
Bishop William Lawrence. 

Our Divine Ally (51). 

A little child of three or four years was taken down into the heart 
of a great city, one day, by a relative who was on a shopping expedi- 
tion. The thronged sidewalks, and especially the crowded streets, with 
their stream of traffic — cars, automobiles and horses pressing upon each 
other continually — greatly interested the baby, and she told of it on her 
return. 

"Weren't you afraid to go across among all those things?" she was 
asked. 

"No," she answered serenely. "The big p'liceman just held up his 
hand, and all the folks and horses waited while Charlotte went over." 

To her childish thought it was all for Charlotte — just a moment of 
enforced quiet that one little girl might pass safely. It was all she 
needed to know, and practically it was true. We older ones, bewildered 
and often sore troubled by all the whirl of life about us, the cares and 
problems of the world that press us on every hand, might learn a lesson 
of comfort from the little one's faith and confidence. However alarm- 
ing and hopeless the outlook may seem, things are never beyond the 
control of the Power that keeps watch over all. For the soul that 
trusts in him God will make a safe path, day by day, amid all the tur- 
moil and perplexities, a quiet place where we may walk unafraid. 

The Law of the Sudden Leap (52). 

And what is the Renaissance, but the sudden leap of the intellect 
fixed into permanent literature! What is the art movement in Flor- 
ence but the law of the sudden leap fixed in the masterpieces! What 
is the reformation in Germany and England but the law of the sudden 
leap in conscience, making a nation to be born in a day! What is the 
meaning of the age of Columbus, with a thousand boats soon exploring 
every harbor, but the birth of a new continent! What is this world en- 
thusiasm over aviation but the sudden mastery of the air! What won- 
ders God hath wrought! No one knows what shall happen in this coun- 
try, because no man can foresee what great man may be born to- 
morrow, what prophet may be set in the market-place, what voices may 
fall through the open rift in the sky, what sword may be sharpened 
against oppression and tyranny. Are you thinking of the politicians, 
forswearing their great convictions for office; of writers, mixing the 
dross of lies with the gold of truth to sell their wares? Are you think- 
ing of the worship of success, the hypnotic power of wealth, the stolidity 
of the middle class, the grossness of the pampered few, the hopeless- 
ness of the poor, the restlessness in the palaces, the sullenness in the 
tenements, the godlessness and the hopelessness of millions? Oh, the 



THE DIVINE PRESENCE 



29 



page can be made as black as can be woven out of the warp and the 
woof of man's despair, and selfishness and sin! But wait! One beam 
of light pierces the eastern sky. God enters the arena. He is fully 
equal to the emergency. The scales fall from the man's eyes, the 
youth meets his vision, and the nation is born in a day. — Newell 
Dwight Hillis, D.D. 

God Within and About Us (53). 

Spurgeon once said that a bird when it is sitting on its eggs, or 
when the little ones are newly hatched, has about it a mother spirit, so 
that it devotes all of its life to the feeding of its little ones; other birds 
may be taking their pleasures on the wing, but this bird sits still, the 
livelong day and night, or its only flights are to provide for gaping 
mouths which seem to be never filled. A passion has taken possession 
of the bird; and something like it comes over the true soul-winner. He 
would gladly die to win souls; he pines, he pleads, he plods to bless 
those on whom his heart is set. If these could be saved, he would pawn 
half his heaven for it; aye, and sometimes, in moments of enthusiasm, 
he is ready to barter heaven altogether to win souls. Give us a passion 
like that in this church, so that we all feel that all our work connected 
with the church, Sunday and week day, fails of its supreme purpose 
unless it is redeeming the lost; unless it is winning back men and 
women who are in danger of eternal defeat, and nothing can stand in 
the way of our spiritual conquest. — Banks. 

Helpless But Mighty (54). 

Several years ago a Chinese woman brought a slave girl to a Chris- 
tian hospital in Canton. This girl was blind, as the social outcasts of 
China often are, but was also going lame, and so might become useless 
to her owner. The doctors said amputation of one leg was necessary. 
Whereupon the owner decamped, abandoning her human property. The 
girl worked about the place, but at length had a new sorrow added to 
her already heavy load by the discovery of signs of leprosy upon her. 
Blind, lame, diseased, she departed to be segregated in a colony of simi- 
lar unfortunates. Yet she departed not as she came. While in the hos- 
pital, the love of those about her had won her to Christ. And In the leper 
colony she told others of the great love that had come to her. In two 
years she had a group of leper Christians about her. In five years she 
had a leper church. Today she is a center of grateful Christian life and 
service. — Brooklyn Eagle. 

What God Can Do With and Through Men (55). 

The Bible has accounts of many lives made over. In the Old Tes- 
tament, we find Jacob, the supplanter, the great by name and also by 
nature; but when he is In the grip of the angel of the Lord, and the 
angel wrestles with him, he limps away from the angelic embrace, and 
to power, and, Instead of Jacob the Supplanter, he Is Israel the Prince. 

Elijah, in the same Old Testament, was a man of like passions with 
ourselves; but his passions, controlled, were like the very Bteeds to 
the chariot which came from heaven to be his escort into the heavenly 
city. 



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St. Paul, In the New Testament, bitter as a persecutor, thirsting for 
the blood of those who believed in the Nazarene, consenting to the 
death of St. Stephen and persecuting Christians unto strange cities, 
becomes as gentle as a woman and glories in the fact that he bears in 
his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. 

St. Peter, who was in other days a man of weakness, ignorance and 
failure, becomes the mighty preacher of the sermon on Pentecost and is 
the writer of superb epistles; and what God can do for Jacob and Elijah, 
St. Paul and St. Peter, he can do for you and do for me. 

If our lives were completely yielded to our great Master, the whole 
world would be charmed by the beauty and power of the Christian life. 
Then we would be victorious in the time of trial, for even though the 
nights were dark and the burdens heavy we could hear him say, "Fear 
not, I am with thee," "Thou art mine," "My grace is sufficient for thee." 
— Chapman. 



VI. THE PATH OF OBEDIENCE LEADS TO 
THE GOAL OF PROSPERITY. 

"Oh that there were such a heart in them that they would fear me . . . 
that It might be well with them." — Deuteronomy 5:29. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Just as it is the long run that tests in the fullest degree the real 
merits of the participants in a race, so it is with life. Many things which 
go well for a season come to grief if the test is protracted. That alone 
haB the stamp of genuineness which endures all climes and times. In 
the long run, honesty, righteousness, and truth pay best. Villainy may 
flourish for a while, and the false may appear to triumph, but the tri- 
umph is transitory. God's steps are slow, but they who attend his move- 
ments are never disappointed. In the long run, character carries the day. 
Men come eventually to be known for what they are, however appear- 
ances may mislead at first. Injustice will be defeated, and wrongs will 
be righted all in good time. In the long run, the worlding will be seen 
to be a simpleton, and he who humbly trusts in God will be proved a 
sage. Foolish are they who leave eternity out of the reckoning. That 
Is really the "long run," in comparison with which all else is but a step, 
a moment. Blessed are they who build that thought into every part of 
their lives, and rule their behavior strictly by it. — Selected. 

* * * 

Rev. Ambrose Shepherd, D. D., said on this subject: Time teaches 
ub — in fact compels us — to put new meaning into our words; and I hold 
it true to say, that a good man may prosper in all he doeth, and yet 
hardly succeed in anything, if we mean by success what the world ordL 
narily does mean by it. There are failures that are victories, and there 
are successes which an honest man would rather be without. Before we 
conclude that a thing la worth its price, we must consider well its cost. 
We may know the price of a thing and not its value. Success has to do 
with the price, prosperity with the value. When a man betters his cir- 
cumstances, puts money in his purse, wins public recognition, at the 
expense of upright character, he may be justified on his level in calling 
it success; but no wise onlooker would call it prosperity. 

* * * 

Dr. L. A. Banks wrote: 

Youth is full of the possibilities of education and enlargement. Its 
horizon is almost limitless, if the soul Is given up to goodness. If a 
man wants to be a mechanic, or a merchant, or a physician, or a lawyer, 
or a minister, or a journalist, he begins in youth. It is essential to all 
high success In the trade or the profession that he shall take advantage 
of youth's glorious possibilities. How much more so if we want to make 
of life a tower of strength for goodness, If we want to make strong the 
foundations of a lighthouse to shine abroad the light of the Lord Jesus 
ChrlBt! Childhood is Immeasurably more Impressionable than youth, 
and In turn youth Is far more easily impressed than manhood. As hot 



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wax receives the impression of the stamp and retains it long, so the 
mind of the young may be stamped by the character of God and carry it 
always, a beneficent blessing to all who may read it. If one comes to 
the Lord Jesus Christ in his youth and gives his very heart to him, every 
relation of life that he takes on is leavened with the gracious influence 
of the presence of Christ. Such a life will stand the test of time and 
eternity. 

There used to be an old, battered safe standing on Broadway, New 
York, on which was this sign: "It stood the test, the contents were all 
saved." It had been in one of the hottest fires New York ever saw, but 
the old safe had carried its treasure safely through it all, and delivered 
every scrap of paper it contained unharmed to its owner. So you may 
put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and know that he will be faithful, 
and bring you out safe in the end with everything committed to his care. 
No life is so safe as that which is guided and controlled by the Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Even Temporal Welfare is Promoted by the Fear of the Lord (56). 

Christian people, as a direct result of becoming Christian, accumu- 
late property. Every social group has a communal intellectual life. It 
has leaders in the various departments of mental effort, but these leaders 
are only possible because of the general stimulus that they find in their 
surroundings. The message of Jesus has been the greatest single intel- 
lectual stimulus that the world has ever known. It would be a childish 
mistake to suppose that the force of it is expended in theology. It finds 
expression in literature, art, music, philosophy, economics, politics and 
sociology. The greatest races easily accepted Christianity because it 
was something they could coherently think about. Its great ideas are 
registered in increased mental power. So the Christian nations became 
rich. 

Great revivals of religion show how the multitude when quickened in 
spirit are also illuminated in intelligence and strengthened in virtue. So 
John Wesley's disciples were scarcely converted before they began to 
save money. The poor who become religious begin to be prosperous. 
The Salvation Army is able to show this with its converted men, and has 
prepared them for heaven by making them fit for earth. When a man 
ceases to be a drunkard and a loafer and becomes self-respecting and 
self-supporting, there is a visible miracle of grace. Christianity is not 
the enemy of property, but is the most influential agent in its accumu- 
lation. 

When Jesus taught his followers to give to the poor, he implied that 
he thought they would have something to give. The monastic exaltation 
of poverty in the early Church and the sordid praise of it in modern 
times, often by those who are not poor, ignore the plain facts that pov- 
erty is only occasionally a misfortune; that it is often immoral and some- 
times a disgrace. 

On the other hand, it seems scarcely necessary to say that some 
fortunes are larger than either honesty or intelligence would warrant. 
There are other forms of stealing besides larceny and burglary. We are 



THE PATH OF OBEDIENCE 



33 



doubtless coming to a time when the control of wealth will be more 
rigidly under law. It may be we can come to a time when very large" 
accumulations of wealth may be discouraged by graduated taxation, or 
by taking a portion of the property of the dead for public purposes. Per- 
sonally, I doubt the wisdom of many of the proposed economic reforms. 
Unusual rewards for unusual industry and capacity are useful to human 
progress. The sanctity of private property, justly and lawfully acquired, 
is one of the great Anglo-Saxon traditions. — The Congregationalism 

Conduces to Happiness (57). 
All the precepts of religion conduce, incidentally, to our temporal 
happiness. Not a single practice enjoined by the church requires an im- 
possibility or entails a sacrifice of our health, or peace or our prosperity. 
The observance of Sunday does not lessen the products of industry; on 
the contrary, actually seems to increase them. So that from mere 
motives of selfishness, employers have found it good policy to induce 
their workingmen to observe the Sabbath day. Then we are not to over- 
look the happiness which the recreation of the first day of the week 
means to mankind in all conditions. Our lives would be worn out much 
sooner but for the Baving grace of this day. And life is not entirely a 
matter of labor; mankind has not been sentenced to the galleys nor 
doomed by natural law to incessant toil. — Selected. 

The Testimony of Economists (58). 
Expert economists tell us that the cause of hard times lies deeper 
than the tariff or the currency. It is found in waste. This will hardly 
be denied. But where is there such waste as in our sins and follies? 
"An increase of one-tenth in demand is sufficient to change adversity into 
prosperity, but this country spends every year more than one-tenth of 
its product in drink alone. Who can measure what it would mean to 
our Industries if the billion dollars we thus squander each year were 
Bpent for shoes and food and houses? Factories would be running over- 
time and then still swamped in orders. New York has been wailing of 
late over the thousands of her people who go to bed hungry, yet last year 
she spent at Coney Island, her great playground, forty-five million dol- 
lars, or three times what the nation paid Napoleon for Louisiana and six 
times what we paid for Alaska. Thus what we waste in our sins and 
our follies far exceeds what we lack in necessities and comforts." — 
Selected. 

The Penalty of Unfaithfulness (59). 

Every nation that has disobeyed God, has grown proud, rich, arro- 
gant; that has trampled upon the holy law of God, has perished. Where 
Is Egypt today, once mighty, In wealth, in all national resources? Where 
Is Assyria, the threshing Instrument with which God disciplined Israel? 
Her magnificent capital, hoary with age and bloody with crime, slept for 
the long centuries buried in forgetfulness, until the spade has recently 
uncovered the skeleton. The Medo-Perslan power has passed away. 
Rome perished, died of moral decay, after having enriched herself with 
the treasures of this world. The culture and art of Greece could not 
preserve the life of that nation. 

The habitable world Is marred with the burial places of the nations 



34 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



that have not known, or have forgotten, God. And from their silent rest- 
ing places comes the voice of admonition: "Now all these things hap- 
pened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, 
upon whom the ends of the world are come. "Wherefore let him that 
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." — Wishard. 

How He Gained Not Lost (60). 
Some years ago a successful lawyer in an Indiana city told me he 
became a Christian just as he was beginning practice. "What do you 
want to be so foolish for? You'll spoil your business," was the warning 
of a friend, the proprietor of a saloon. "Be a Christian if you will, but 
keep quiet about it. No one wants a Christian lawyer." The lawyer did 
not keep it quiet. His practice grew. The saloonkeeper, however, gave 
his work to an atheist practicing near-by — until he wanted to make his 
will. Then he sent for the Christian lawyer. "I want a Christian for 
this work," he said. "I must have a man on whom I can depend." 

Piety and Prosperity (61). 

Everything you do to elevate the moral and religious tone of the 
community adds dollars to your city and value to your property and 
power to your commercial interests; and everything you do in a political 
way that lowers the moral tone of your people or casts a reflection upon 
the moral life of your city, depreciates your values and brings financial 
disaster. You can not serve God and mammon. — M. A. Matthews. 

God Takes Care of His Servants (62). 

Billy Bray, the Cornish miner, whose rugged piety has been a bless- 
ing to so many, says that one year his crop of potatoes turned out so 
poorly that when he was digging them, Satan, at his elbow, said, "There, 
Billy, isn't that poor pay for serving your Father the way you have all 
the year? Just see those small potatoes!" He stopped digging, and re- 
plied, "Ah, Satan, at it again; talking against my Father, bless his name! 
Why, when I served you I did not get any potatoes at all. What are you 
talking about?" And on he went digging and praising the Lord for small 
potatoes. — Ram's Horn. 

Grounded in Obedience (63). 
The hard tests come to every life. The elemental forces of human 
experience, the wind and the rain, the stream and the flood, threaten the 
life structure of each one of us. The various temptations, subtle and 
powerful, the heavy burdens of responsibility, which cause men to stag- 
ger, the bitter disappointments which beat the dearest purposes we cher- 
ish, the shock of adversity or of bereavement which causes the very foun- 
dations of our hope to tremble, all these experiences come steadily to 
the children of men. And the tested lives stand or fall as they have or 
have not been grounded in obedience to principles, as they have or have 
not come to grip the fundamental realities. — Chas. R. Brown. 

Obedience the Remedy (64). 

Many a break-down which is attributed to nerves or overwork Is 
a religious matter. The soul has been injured, and every individual 
process has shown the result. The physician, as things are, cannot go 



THE PATH OF OBEDIENCE 



35 



Into the question of the patient's personal faith or religious life. We 
have shut those things into one water-tight compartment and the physical 
life into another. But the life is one, and damage done to the soul goes 
all through. The trouble with many lives all centers in something which 
they never speak of, and there are thousands of cases of men and 
women who are now in a physically deteriorating condition who would 
find peace and health and power coming back to them with a fortnight's 
old-fashioned and persistent obedience to the laws of prayer and trust 
and obedience. But so long as they can think it is all and only physical, 
they can lay off upon the body everything that is wrong. There are 
bodies which have been made sick and weak, not by injury or disease, 
but by the steady influence upon them of a spirit which would not obey 
its laws as the body was willing to obey its own. — S. S. Times. 



VII. THE SAFETY OF GOD'S CHILDREN. 



"The Eternal God Is Thy Refuge and Underneath Are The Everlasting 
Arms."— Deut. 33:27. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

L He is the "eternal" God in contrast with earthly friends who are 
themselves subject to earth's mutations. 

II. This "refuge" means a dwelling place for protection to homeless 
wanderers. You find practically the same thought in Psa. 90:1; 91:9, and 
in Heb. 1:12. God is not only in heaven (above) watching over, but he 
is on earth (below "underneath") supporting, sustaining. 

III. "The everlasting arms" with their omnipotent, all-loving embrace, 
never weary and are of measureless strength and endurance. They carry, 
keep from stumbling, sustain his weak and road-worn children. They 
never fail. "For he who keepeth Israel slumbers not nor sleeps," is the 
refrain which sounds out from St. Paul's chimes throughout the London 
night, far above the heads of the populace. The child of God is safe and 
secure even amid threatening perils. — Selected. 

* ♦ * 

We are "kept by the power of God." We are assured that he who 
keepeth the sparrows will much more certainly keep us. 

God's providence is universal. "His kingdom ruleth over all." He 
can govern all only by controlling each. He manages the stream, be- 
cause he presides at the fountain. God's providence is minute and spe- 
cific. Great doors swing on small hinges. God's very greatness enables 
him to care for the little; only the Infinite can pay attention to infin- 
itesimals. It is "trifles that make perfection." Telescopes reveal the 
magnitude of God's creation; microscopes, the minuteness of his care. 
God's providence is beneficent. "All things work together for good." 
"As for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good." 
Even the wrath of man is made to subserve God's beneficent purpose. 
"All things are yours." "Fire and hail; snow and vapor; Btormy wind, 
fulfilling his word." "I know the thoughts that I think toward you, 
thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end." "Trust 
In the Lord." — Sanders. 

* * * 

I. Faith flees to an eternal refuge. This is conversion. 

II. God upholds with everlasting arms. This Is the secret of Chris- 
tian endurance. My appraisal of my spiritual assets is the measure of my 
confidence and strength. 1. The eternal God Is my refuge. The everlast- 
ing arms are underneath — whether faith remembers or unbelief forgets. 
2. But my peace of mind, my calm assurance will be determined by the 
clearness with which I apprehend the blessed fact 

* * * 

God Our Home — The word "refuge" may be translated "man- 
sion," or "abldlng-place," which gives the thought that God Is our abode, 
our home. There Is a great BweetncBs In this metaDhor. for verv doar to 



38 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



our hearts is our home. 1. It is at home that we feel safe; we shut the 
world out, and dwell in quiet security. So with God "we fear no evil." 
2. At home, we take our rest. So our hearts find rest in God. 3. At home, 
also, we let our hearts loose: we are not afraid of being misunderstood. 
So we may freely commune with God. 4. Home is the place of our truest 
and purest happiness. It is in God that our hearts find their deepest 
delight. 6. It is for home that we work and labor. So must we work 
for God. — Spurgeon. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Helpless But Secure (65). 

Bella Cook in New York was left a widow at twenty-seven. At 
thirty-five she became bedridden, an absolute pauper so far as this world 
can see. If you had added up her financial resources, you would not have 
found ten cents. She had not physical strength enough to walk across 
the room. But she was rich in the unsearchable riches of Christ. There 
were no walls of money or physical power about her, but God was about 
her, the wall of fire, and within her, irradiating her face, speaking peace 
and triumph to her soul; he was the glory in the midst. She was bed- 
ridden for fifty-two years, and for all that half a century she was one of 
the greatest personalities in New York. Women worth millions in this 
world's gold often left their carriages standing in front of her humble 
rooms, and pillowed their heads on her bed and sobbed out their hearts 
while Bella Cook prayed for them. She became the center of a great 
charitable work. Through the money God sent she reached out into the 
cellars and byways of the poorest sections of a great wicked city with 
streams of blessing, and for over half a century, as a 6ort of illustration 
of the divine power to beautify a helpless life, God made her existence 
a perpetual inspiration to faith in him. — Banks. 

Consciously Kept (66). 

The natives of Cawnpore used to say of Henry Martyn, "God is 
shining in that man's face." Do you wonder that he was an interpreter 
to them of heavenly power when he could write in his diary, "My prin- 
cipal enjoyment is the enjoyment of God's presence?" They only can 
point out the heavenly powers who have themselves had the vision, 
who know the enjoyment of God's presence. Elisha could make the 
young man see the horses and chariots of fire round about because 
he himself saw them. — Selected. 

Protected Against All Harm (67). 

Pepys' Diar; describes a visit that the writer paid to a shepherd on 
Epsom Downs. "We took notice of his woolen-knit stockings of two col- 
ors, mixed, and of his feet shod with iron shoes, both at the toes and 
heels, and with great nails in the soles of his feet, which was mighty 
pretty; and, taking notice of them, 'Why,' says the poor man, 'the downs, 
you see, are full of stones, and we are faine to shoe ourselves thus: and 
these,* says he, 'will make the stones fly till they sing before me.' " la 
not this a figure of the enduement of the saints, and of their triumphant 
progress on the heavenly road? Verily, by virtue of the divine power 



THE SAFET"? OF GOD'S CHILDREN 



39 



with which they are endowed, they not only progress toward the goal, 
but they "make the stones fly till they sing before them." 

This grace prevails when the path is rough and thorny, when it can 
be followed only with sore or bleeding feet. The human lot is often 
felt to be cruel; it taxes even heroism to the uttermost to sustain it. 
How precious, then, in these days is that interior light, confidence, and 
peace with which the loyal soul is inspired! Instead of being bruised 
or broken by the savage angles of the ugly stones which thickly strew 
all the way, the pilgrim "makes the stones fly till they sing before him." 
Ah! even the crudest stones of all — the grave-stones — as everyone may 
see who makes a tour of the churchyard. The promise is triumphantly 
realized. — W. L. Watkinson. 

The Love of God (68). 
Like a cradle rocking, rocking, 

Silent, peaceful to and fro, 
Like a mother's sweet looks dropping 

On the little face below — 
Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning, 

Jarless, noiseless, safe and slow. 
Falls the light of God's face bending 

Down and watching us below. 

And as feeble babes that suffer, 

Toss and cry and will not resl 
Are the ones the tender mother 

Holds the closest, loves the best — 
So when we are weak and wretched, 

By our sins weighed down, distressed, 
Then it is that God's great patience 

Holds us closest, loves us best. 

O great heart of God! whoBe loving 

Cannot hindered be nor crossed. 
Will not weary, will not even 

In our death itself be lost — 
Love divine! of such great loving 

Only mothers know the cost — 
Cost of love, which all love passing. 

Gave a Son to save the lost. Saxe Holm. 

God's Mother-love (69). 

The measure of greatness in any living thing Is sensitiveness to suf- 
fering. A stone suffers not at all, it has no life. The oyster suffers a 
little, it has a single nerve. The bird is higher, and suffers for two or 
three days when its nest is robbed. Higher still the deer, that goes 
everywhither, moaning for its fawn, and whose suffering lasts for weeks. 
The Indian mother is higher, and remembers her babe through the sum- 
mer and the winter. But what sensitiveness comes when the Christian 
mother appears! Her mother-love worships her babe almost as a form 
of divinity. One night she wrestles with the death-angel and is defeated. 



40 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



The years come and the years go, but still the memory of the child is 
with her. A half-century passes. Time avails not to cool the ardor 
of her love. But though a mother forgets her child, God doth not forget 
his sinning sons and daughters. Higher than a mother's and more sen- 
sitive is the heart of God. 

The asolian harp is so sensitive that the softest zephyr wakens music 
among its strings. So there is no heartache, and no pain, and no 
cry of the transgressor, that does not touch the strings of sensitiveness 
and sympathy in the mind of God. For he who beholds his pilgrim band 
going across the years, stumbling, wandering, falling, bleeding, dying, 
follows each pilgrim heart with exquisite sympathy, and with infinite 
solicitude. 

The angel of his providence goes before the prodigal son. The angel 
of his goodness encamps on the right hand; the angel of his bounty en- 
camps on the left. The angels of his mercy follow after, to correct the 
transgressor's mistakes and undo his sins. Of criminals it is said that 
the detective agency is now so organized that no wrong-doer can escape. 
Though the absconder hide in the garret, though he make his bed in some 
mine, though he take a ship and flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, 
he cannot escape the sleuth who follows him. And be it reverently said, 
no prodigal son can escape the sleuth-like love of God's pursuing provi- 
dence. Go where you will, you cannot elude it. At last God's love will 
find you out, and bring you back from the husks into the Father's house. 
— Hillis. 



It was a dreary November morning in the year 1630, the same year 
in which the brave and pious king of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, had 
landed on the German coast to help his brethren, the German Protestants, 
to defend themselves against the Roman Catholic legions, under their 
leader, the cruel and heartless Tilly. 

On this November evening there sat an old mother in a farmhouse 
on the outskirts of a Saxon village. Her son, a young man of about 
twenty years, had just brought home a rumor that a detachment of the 
much-feared Spanish troops was approaching, and would probably pass 
through the village during the night. The young man besought his 
mother to take refuge in the mountains. But she answered, if God willed 
it so, they would be saved, and exhorted him to prayer. 



She lighted a lamp, took her prayerbook, and began to sing "A Wall, 
O Lord, Around Us Build." At this the son revolted, telling his mother 
that by her foolish singing and by the light of her lamp she would cer- 
tainly show the enemies the way to their home, and needlessly expose 
them. But she persevered, and continued to sing, "A Wall, O Lord, 
Around Us Build." 

"How can the Lord build a wall around us?" angrily questioned the 
Bon. "The time of miracles is past." 

"The Lord can, if he so will," she quietly answered, and continued to 
sing and pray through the whole night: "A Wall, O Lord, Around Us 
Build." 

When the morning broke the son ventured to the door. When he 
tried to open it, he found it barricaded. A heavy snowdrift had ob- 



"A Wall, O Lord, Around Us Build" (70). 




THE SAFETY OF GOD'S CHILDREN 



41 



atructed it and buried the house, thus concealing it from the enemies, 
who, during the night, had passed through the village, carrying plunder 
and murder into almost every home. — Christian Messenger. 

Shielded From Danger (71). 

While on a long journey across India, Dr. John Scudder, the first 
medical missionary from America, contracted jungle fever, and it was 
thought he could not live. When word reached Mrs. Scudder, she bor- 
rowed a tent, laid in a stock of provisions, hired the necessary bearers, 
and started to join him at once, taking her little son with her. 

The way led through a dense jungle infested by wild beasts. But 
all went well until night came on, when the bearers became so terrified 
at the growling of the tigers that they suddenly fled. 

With no human arm to protect her, the defenseless woman spent 
the long hours of that lonely night in prayer. Again and again she heard 
the tread of wild elephants and the low, menacing growls of tigers not far 
away. "All night long," says her brother, "they seemed to be circling 
around the spot where she knelt, ready to spring upon her and her 
child." But God held them back. In the morning the bearers returned, 
and the journey was resumed. At its close, Mrs. Scudder found the 
crisis past and her husband convalescent — Belle Brain. 

God Does Care (72). 
About the beginning of this century an unbeliever was reported to 
have said that the mission of the twentieth century would be to discover 
God, and when God should be discovered, it would be found that he does 
not care. It would be a bitter sorrow for the world if this prophecy 
were to come true. The secret of hope in believing souls everywhere 
is that God does care. This is one great truth that God has been striving 
through all the generations to have men believe. — J. R. Miller. 



VIII. LIFE'S SUPREME CHOICE. 



"Choose you this day whom you will serve . . . but as for me and my 
house we will serve the Lord." — Joshua 24:15. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. W. H. Clough said: The man I honor is the man who can rise 
in a company of men and women disloyal to all that Christ has taught, 
and make his protest for his Master. Do you remember how Thackeray 
has shown us the most chivalrous and the most Christian man in all hia 
gallery of brave and noble spirits attaining that high honor? When 
Colonel Newcome heard the gross song sung by the popular wit of the 
company, and received with rounds of applause, he rose, stirred to a deep 
moral anger, and flushed with shame, "Does any man say go on to such 
disgusting ribaldry as this? For my part I am not sorry that my son 
should see, for once in his life, to what shame and degradation and dis- 
honor drunkenness may bring a man." In that great day, when Christ 
comes again, of such deeds and of such men he shall speak in praise. 
"Whosoever confesseth me before men, him will I also confess before my 
Father which is in heaven." 

Can we follow these confessors of the Lord? Do we always acknowl- 
edge our allegiance to Christ? Do not some of us stand in workshops 
where Jests are passed and allusions are made which dishonor Christ, 
and we make no protest? Do not some of us sit at men's tables and hear 
talk which is not only scornful to Christian verities, but corrupting to 
Christian purity, and we make no sign? You say that you felt the hot 
blush when all that Christ lived for and died for was slighted and 
mocked at. My brother, Christ asks more than a blush. There is a time 
when it is a shame not to speak. However difficult it may be to know 
when and how to make our confession, and what to say and to do, and 
however unwilling you are to appear ostentatious or pharisaic, there are 
occasions in life when we must confess our allegiance, or stand under 
the condemnation of having been ashamed of Christ 

* * * 

Rev. J. P. Landis, D. D., said: To confess Christ before men is to 
make a public acknowledgment of him as the Saviour of the race, but 
especially to express one's acceptance of him as his personal Saviour, to 
espouse actively his cause, to ally one's self with the disciples of Christ. 
He that announces his trust in Jesus for forgiveness, who is truly bap- 
tized Into the name of Christ, and partakes of the Lord's Supper, who 
unites with the Church and labors for the upbuilding of Christ's king- 
dom, in all these ways confesses Christ. So also a life of obedience, hu- 
mility, piety, godly zeal, which is Christ-like, Is a witness for Christ and 
a testimony to his transforming power. Such an one will Christ not only 
formally acknowledge before the Father, but give him a glorious share in 
his heavenly honor. 

To deny Christ Is to do the opposite of the above. To do this it la 
not necessary publicly and formally to declare one's renunciation of 
Christ as an infidel might do. but simply neglect to confess him in the 



14 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



ways above indicated. If we in any such way disown Christ, we are none 
of his, and it cannot but be that he must disown us. Let us, then, accept 
and confess Christ as our Lord and Saviour. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Choosing a Career. 

It was said of the consecrated Bishop Thoburn that "He chose Christ 
for a career." 

Truth in Repose (73). Emerson said that "God offers every mind its 
choice between truth and repose. Take which you please — you can never 
have both." 

God or the Devil (74). 

G. Campbell Morgan says: My father came into my house soon after 
I was married, and looked around into every room, and then he said to 
me: "Yes, it is very nice, but nobody will know, walking through here, 
whether you belong to God or the devil." I went through and looked at 
the rooms again, and I thought: "He is quite right." So we made up 
our minds straightway that there should be no room in our house, hence- 
forth, that had not some message, by picture or wall text, for every cor- 
ner should tell that we serve the King. 

A Whole-Hearted Choice (75). 

To say to Jesus, "Thou art as one of the great religious teachers," 
does not satisfy him. He calls only those blessed who say, "Thou art the 
Saviour, the divine Son of the true and living God, my Saviour and my 
Lord." In the town of Bansley, England, there was a great revival. A 
talented man, a lecturer on atheism, when approached by a Christian 
friend, said contemptuously, "Christ is not worth a thought." But the 
next evening he went to Henry Thome, the evangelist, and said, "I have 
received the Lord Jesus Christ as my Saviour." The following Sunday 
evening, in the presence of a large audience, he testified, "Last week I did 
not believe there was a God, but now I know the Lord Jesus Christ has 
pardoned all my sins." — Selected. 

The Great Decision (76). 

It was a day in spring, a Saturday, and the millhands in the New 
England village stopped work at noon. Forth from the stocking mill 
where he labored came Charley Jordan, happy to be out in the spring 
air with a half-holiday at his disposal. Half-way down the street he met 
his Sunday School teacher, who stopped him for a moment, spoke pleas- 
antly of the fine spring weather, asked him a question about his work, 
inquired if he would be in Sunday School next day, and passed on. Then 
wavering a moment in her own mind, she turned with a sudden impulse 
and faced him again. 

"Charley," she asked, "don't you think it is time for you to take a 
stand for the best things — I mean, you know, the things of the Christian 
life?" 

He had heard sermons all his life, and was not moved by them, 
but this simple, direct word of his teacher touched a sudden chord in 
bis heart. He was fifteen, more than two-thirds of twenty-one. 

He thought a moment and then said; 



LIFE'S SUPREME CHOICE 



45 



"Yea, Mrs. Beale, I think it is time. I will do it." 

He went to his home as he had often gone before, and yet not the 
same. He had made a great decision, and had something to live up to. 
He had always been a clean boy and a thoughtful boy. He had few bad 
habits to unlearn or serious faults to forsake. What had he promised to 
do, and how was he to go about it, and what did it all amount to, 
anyway? 

As to his outer conduct, it was not greatly different from before. But 
more resolutely he sought association with the better things about him. 
New and large aspirations took possession of him, and found new impulse 
from within. He drew better books from the library and sought the 
fellowship of the best young people. 

He is still a young man, relatively speaking; but he has reached a 
position of influence and usefulness second to that of no man in the city 
where he now resides. Very recently, to a close friend, he told the story 
of his early struggles, and came back again and again to the moment 
when, a care-free boy, whistling his way home from the factory, he 
paused to meet the simple question of his Sunday School teacher, a 
question she had asked with fluttering heart, and almost forbore to ask 
at all. 

"It was the very opportune moment," said he, "and although I was 
In no serious danger of going to the bad, it kindled within me a new 
aspiration, born of a new ideal." — Youth's Companion. 

The Reaction of Choice in Character (77). 

Christians themselves need the strength which open confession 
brings. It braces one to let men know that he has identified himself with 
a noble cause. The consciousness that men have their eyes upon us is 
one of the ways God has of holding his servants true to their appointed 
task. Let a man commit himself in public to an arduous enterprise, and 
the gaze of the witnesses will help keep him from turning back. When 
men enlisted for the Civil" War they always did it in public. The act of 
putting on the uniform and marching openly under the flag quenched the 
fears of the heart, and made timid men brave as lions. No man is strong 
enough to dispense with the strength which comes from public confes- 
sion. — Charles E. Jefferson, D.D. 

"On the Lord's Side" (78). 

It Is a glorious thing to be "on the Lord's side." Moses was on It. 
The finest spirits of history have been ranged thereon. Are we? Every- 
one would be "on the Lord's side" did they know how right and good that 
side Is. Those who are "on the Lord's side" are on the side of all that 
is pure and spiritual and kind and beneficent. "The Lord's side" Is a 
phrase which, like many Old Testament expressions, has acquired a 
deepened significance In these days of the Christian faith. "The Lord's 
■lde" now means Christ's side, the side of "righteousness and peace and 
Joy in the Holy Ghost." 

They who are "on the Lord's side" are pardoned. Mnny of them 
know this, and all may know It. "I believe in the forgiveness of sins," 
■avs the Christian, and ho has good reason to believe in It. He has the 



(6 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



Inward peace and the far-shining hope which are the seal and assurance 
of it. 

When we are "on the Lord's side," our whole nature is renewed. 
Verily, we are "born again." All the old things have become new. We 
love the good and hate the evil. We watch and we pray that we may 
please God. Cheerful holiness becomes the passion of our lives. Not 
that we are without temptations. By no means. We have "manifold 
temptations." And the more our zeal for Christ increases the more insid- 
ious and fearful are our temptations. But even these dark experiences 
have their strong encouragement. They are sure signs that we are "on 
the Lord's side." Satan would not lure us were he not persuaded that it 
is to that side we belong. And with all the temptations our sympathizing 
Lord gives us a way of escape. 

They who are "on the Lord's side" are called to declare themselves. 
Mr. Facing-both-ways is not of the soldiery of Jehovah. In most matters 
we are required to take sides. This is so in literature, in politics, in con- 
versation. Necessarily, it is also so in religion. Moses sternly de- 
manded that those who were "on the Lord's side" should avow it in that 
critical season. And the demand of Moses is the eternal demand: "Who 
Is on the Lord's side?" This is a challenge we all must soon or late 
respond to. Why not let it be soon rather than late? — The Young Man. 

The Pretexts of Indecision (79). 

When duly examined the pretexts of indecision are absurd; unless 
we submit to the great appeal, nothing is left but speechlessness. What 
are the undecided ones waiting for? Some are stopped by a variety of 
presuppositions. Much mystery and many questions must be cleared up. 
There are difficulties with regard to the Bible: the great question of 
Noah's ark, of Balaam's ass, of the Gadarene swine. How shall we rec- 
oncile sin, suffering, and death, with the goodness of God? Are not the 
birth and death of Christ wrapped in mystery? Now, it is true that reve- 
lation presents great problems; but does this justify our hesitation? 
Spots appear on the sun, yet it gives more light than any other luminary, 
therefore we rejoice to walk in its light; and although dark places occur 
in revelation, it is still "the master-light of all our seeing," and our oom- 
mon sense bids us follow its guidance. We have to judge between Christ 
and other masters, and there need not be one moment's hesitation be- 
tween the glorious liberty, the godly comfort, the high character, the 
sweet service, the benign influence, the splendid hope of the Christian 
life and the life of sin. 

Many wait for a more powerful impulse. Waiting for something 
practically supernatural that will agitate, stimulate, or master them; 
but really the appeal of conscience is not less the voice of God than the 
vision that smote Saul. 

Others wait for a convenient season. "Convenient" is a word that 
has no place in serious life. When seriously ill, we do not defer send- 
ing for the doctor until it is convenient. How much rather, then, shall 
we promptly deal with the crisis of the soul! — W. L. Watkinson, D.D. 



IX. UNDER THE SCRUTINY OF 
OMNISCIENCE. 

"But the Lord looked on the Heart." 1 Samuel 16:7. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
Rev. Dr. James I. Good makes the following comment: How search- 
ing are the eyes of God, "discerning the thoughts and intents of the 
heart!" His vision is both telescopic and microscopic, seeing us afar off 
and magnifying our actions in their true light. Where art thou? he asks 
us as he did Adam. What doest thou here? he asks as he did Elijah. 
We are to examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith or not. 
Am I a Laodicean, and lukewarm? Have I just enough religion to lull 
my conscience into a false security? Lukewarm; he wants me to be 
either cold or hot (boiling, fervent) rather than lukewarm; yes, even 
cold (ice cold), than lukewarm. Does our text mean he would rather 
have me no Christian than a lukewarm professor? No, it does not ques- 
tion the state as much as the tendency of my heart. Lukewarmness, if I 
am going from cold to hot, is desirable; but if I am passing from hot to 
cold, it is worse than coldness. What says the thermometer; which way 
points the barometer of my heart? Am I inclining to evil or good — 
growing in grace or in evil? Lord, help me to return to thee?. 

* * * 

The late J. Pierpont Morgan's testimony before the Pujo Committee 
at Washington is an apt commentary on the spirit of this verse; Mr. 
Morgan's words in answer to the examiner's questions are indented: 

I know lots of men, business men, too, who can borrow any 
amount, whose credit is unquestioned. 

Is that not because it is believed that they have the money back of 
them? 

No, sir; it Is because people believe In the man. 
And It Is regardless of whether he has any financial backing at all, 
Is it? 

It Is very often. 
And he might not be worth anything? 

He might not have anything. I have known a man to come 
into my office and I have given him a check for a million dollars 
when I knew he had not a cent In the world. 
There are not many of them? 

Yes, a good many. 
Commercial credits are based upon the possession of money or prop- 
erty? 

Money or property or character. 
Is not commercial credit based primarily upon money or property? 

No, sir; the llrst thing Is character. 
Before money or property? 

Before money or anything else. Money cannot buy IL 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



So that a man with character, without anything at all behind it, can 
get all the credit he wants, and a man with the property cannot get it? 
That is very often the case. 
But is that the rule of business? 

That is the rule of business, sir. 
If that is the rule of business, Mr. Morgan, why do the banks demand 
— the first thing they ask — a statement of what the man has before they 
extend him credit? 

That is a question which — that is what they go into; but the 
first thing they say is, I want to see your record. 
Yes; and if his record is a blank the next thing is how much he has 

got? 

People do not care then. 
For instance, if he has got government bonds, or railroad bonds, and 
goes in to get credit, he gets it, and on the security of those bonds, does 
he not? 

Yes. 

He does not get it on his face or his character, does he? 

Yes, he gets it on his character. 
I see; then he might as well take the bonds home, had he not? 

A man I do not trust could not get money from me on all 
the bonds in Christendom. 
That is the rule all over the world? 

I think that is the fundamental basis of business. 

ILLU8TRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
God's Photograph Gallery (80). 

The whole world is God's photograph gallery. Memory Is a long 
series of photographs of an evil man's sins. Each incident is told in chap- 
ters. The life makes up the tables of memory that are also the Book of 
God. That is what the wise man meant when he said, "God shall bring 
every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or 
whether it be evil." Seemingly, however, this publicity is really a form 
of mercy. The knowledge that all good, as well as all evil, is journeying 
towards the revealing day braces men for their task. Not all things are 
known today, but all will be known tomorrow. Come soon or come late, 
the best and the worst reveals itself. The fly stings the rose and apple, 
but if the wound is secret today, tomorrow the beginnings of decay will 
appear. Not otherwise, evil is a worm working silently in the soul. The 
youth may believe that the pictures he paints on the chambers of imag- 
ination will never be known to any eye save his own; but God buried 
Pompeii for two thousand years, and then the excavator revealed the 
rooms in the house, and lo! the walls covered with suggestive scenes 
are set out to receive the contempt of all mankind. Man's imagination 
is a gallery whose walls of imagery change daily. Dreams are artists. 
Slowly the scenes grow. The faces may be the faces of angels, or they, 
may be the faces of demons. — Newell Dwight Hillis. 



UNDER THE SCRUTINY OF OMNISCIENCE 



49 



Discerning Hidden Flaws (81). 
The dynamometer-car has been a potent influence of late years in 
making railroads safe — not in itself, but in the curious record which it 
makes automatically of the general condition of the road. Most of the 
larger railroads maintain a dynamometer-car. The recording apparatus 
within the car looks very like a small cylinder press, except that from 
the central mechanism cams, cog-wheels, chain-belts, and indicators of 
various kinds reach down through the floor of the car and connect with 
the axles, the wheels, and even the rails themselves. When the car 
moves, these attachments telegraph the condition of the roadbed up 
through the floor of the car to a printing cylinder, where glass fountain- 
pens write an exact account of it all on long rolls of paper. In case 
there is any discrepancy in the roadbed, the apparatus not only records 
rt on paper, but also drops a large spot of yellow or black paint on the 
ties at the faulty spot, so that it may be easily found and repaired. The 
roadbed might seem in perfect condition to the glance of a passer-by, bufi 
the recording apparatus finds and records its defects. Our lives may 
appear all right to those about us, but God knows our every act and even 
the secret thought of our hearts. — S. S. Times. 

Sin's Omniscient Antagonist (82). 
The very constitution of the universe, the laws of Nature are against 
the wrongdoer; the very constitution of the universe, the laws of Nature 
are on the side of the man who does right. Sisera was to these early 
Israelites the personification of oppression and tyranny. Jabin the king 
scarcely counted; Sisera — this man with the nine hundred chariots — 
was the real oppressor. For twenty years he had planted his heel upon 
the neck of Israel; for twenty years he had enslaved them and tyran- 
nized over them. Sisera to the Israelites was the personification and 
representative of the power of evil. And the "stars in their courses" 
stand for Nature's powers, the laws of the universe, the constitution of 
things. And Deborah sang, "The stars in their courses fought against 
Sisera." — J. D. Jones. 

The Immutable Right (83). 

In my boyhood, the first reading lesson in my spelling book was, 
"No man can put off the law of God," words which ought to be inscribed 
In golden letters on our halls of legislature, and engraven Indelibly on 
the heart of every magistrate, lawmaker, and citizen. In national affairs, 
there is intrinsic right, which law cannot neutralize; intrinsic wrong, 
whoBe character no law can modify, whose penalty no law can avert. 
In every act, God has his part. Ho works through men, when they will 
be his agent; upon them, in fearful recompense, when they essay to act 
Independently of him. The march of retribution is sure as the ordinances 
of the heavens. — Andrew P. Peabody. 

Sin's Sure Exposure (84). 

"Take these beans," said father, handing me a bucket containing 
about a half-gallon, "and go drop them, one In a hill, where Charles is 
planting corn, above the mill. You may go fishing when you are through." 
Just the thing I wanted — to go fishing. 



50 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



I started off one bean in a hill, but the amount in my bucket seemed 
to go down so slow. I did not want to be dishonest, but I began to drop 
two or three every few hills, thinking that would be considered acci- 
dental. Somehow I kept increasing the number, until I dropped small 
handfuls. 

The beans soon gave out, and off to the river I went. The fish bit 
all right, and so did the gnats. The latter spoiled the pleasure of fish- 
ing, so to the house I went long before night. 

I think father knew what I had done, but he said nothing. 

I dreaded the time when the beans would come up. I hoped to be 
able secretly to destroy them. But to destroy them without detection 
was impossible. 

At last the dreaded day came. Father asked me to walk with him 
over to the field above the mill and see how the corn and beans were 
looking. As we walked through the field father would say every few 
steps: "Your beans have come up well." At length he stopped and stood 
still where the beans were the thickest. Nothing was said for some 
moment. I could stand it no longer, and burst into tears. Father stopped 
up, put his arm around me, and we knelt together and father prayed.— 
R. S. Satterfield. 

The Records of What God Sees (85). 

"I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books 
were opened" — God's books. Down in the Southland the colored people 
have a song which runs like this: 
"He sees all we do, 

He hears all we say, 

My God's a-writin all the time." 
But you are writing, too. In the British Museum there Is a piece of 
stone, about half the size of my Bible, which is probably five thousand 
years old, and in the middle of the stone there is the mark of a bird's 
foot. Five thousand years ago, when the stcne was soft, the bird put 
its foot upon the stone, and the mark has been there ever since. Mj| 
God is writing all the time, and so are you. — Chapman. 

No Escaping the Records (86). 

Sometimes God is very swift in penalty; at other times, inexorably 
slow. There are sins which instantly condemn a man and make him a 
social outcast in a day. They cannot be hidden, and, being cried abroad, 
they shatter the character and blight the home. But if there be sins 
that go before to judgment, I think there are far more that follow 
after, and such sins may track a man for years before at the long last 
they track him down. I have never heard that this word has been can- 
celled, "Be sure your sin will find you out." You think that because five 
years are gone, or ten, it's all right; your sin is dead and buried. But 
with God a thousand years are as a day. He tarries, but he has not for- 
gotten. — G. H. Morrison. 

Our Real Selves (87). 

It is an old saying that a man is himself in his pleasures. He may 
follow a business which is unpleasant: he may deceive others in manners 



UNDER THE SCRUTINY OF OMNISCIENCE 



and morals, but in his pleasures he is himself. When he is free to do 
what he likes, we find out exactly what kind of a man he is. When the 
apostles were released from prison, we are told that "they returned to 
their own company." Each of us has his company, to which he belongs, 
which he prefers. We may be for a time prevented from joining that 
company. But when all restraint is removed, when necessary work, or 
limitations of time, or public opinion are removed, we, too, go to our own 
place. There Is a moral as well as a material gravitation, which in Its 
operation reveals our real preferences and decides our destiny. — Se- 
lected. 

Character is What God Sees in You (88). 

"Character is what a man is In the dark — what he is without an 
audience," says Robert J. Burdette in The Pacific Baptist. "His reputa- 
tion may be a grandstand play, a safe, senseless slide to second with the 
ball a quarter of a mile away, a cloud of dust and thunders of cheers. 
His character may be the sacrifice hit that brings him hisses and ad- 
vances the team." 

What you wish you were — that is your ideal. What people say you 
are — that is your reputation. What you know you are — that is your 
character. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln: You may fool some other 
people all of the time, you may fool all other people some of the time, 
but you cannot fool yourself one little bit of the time. 

You will not drink wine, not even for politeness' sake at the dinner 
table of an esteemed friend, and "our best society" says you are a fanati- 
cal, bigoted prohibitionist. You will not encourage a vile story with a 
smile. They say you are a cold-blooded hypocrite. You will not allow 
yourself to laugh at a funny story well told, in which all the laugh is In 
its profanity. Folks say you are self-righteous. And you carry your 
Bible openly in your hand when you go to church. "A canting Pharisee," 
they say. Yet all the while your character is that of a sober, pure- 
minded, reverent, God-fearing man — a Christian. Four reputations and 
one character which outweighs and outlasts them all going into eternity 
with you. 

Character! You won't find the word in your Bible. But there you 
learn what it is. The Bible 1b not a dictionary; it is a teacher. The pri- 
mary meaning of the word character is an instrument for marking or 
graving. Commonly, a mark engraved upon a plate of stone or metal; a 
figure or sign cut deep into a plate of bronze by a chisel of steel. Now 
do you begin to understand what your character is? 

Something which your daily life cuts deep and deeper Into your soul 
day by day and marks you. "To him that overcometh I will give a white 
stone, and in the stone (not on it. you observe) a new name written, 
which no man knoweth save he that recelveth it." Is not that won- 
drously glorious? That new name, written by the finger of God deep in 
the white pebble — that is your character. That is your real name. Not 
Simon that men called you by, but Peter by God's rechrlstening; what 
God knows you are and what you know you are. Do you begin to under- 
stand? 

Even the angels may never fully comprehend your true character. 
John quotes Cbrist as saying that it is a secret between yourself and 



52 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



God. Maybe God himself does not know your new name yet. He is 
learning it from your daily life. Are you setting him a fair copy for that 
new name? You pray God every day to watch over you and Keep you 
from evil. Do you pray that he will watch you to see what you are doing, 
hear what you are saying, look down into your soul to note what you are 
thinking? By those things you are making character. God does not 
make it. You do. 

Character is not builded up like a house that may be torn down if it 
be found defective. It is being engraved day by day deep, deep into your 
soul, the immortal part of you. You cannot rub it out. It stands. And 
you cannot write it in the ragged years of the fag end of a misspent life. 
Christ can forgive the sins of a thief on his deathbed, but he cannot give 
him the character of ah honest man. 

"As a man thinketh, so is he." What do you think about when you 
are alone? What are you in the dark? What is your real name? 

Decay at the Heart (89). 

Toward the end of summer a single tree in the forest will begin to 
change color ahead of all others, thus exciting the enthusiastic admira- 
tion of thoughtless observers. The tree is sickly and dying. It is short- 
ening its period of usefulness, and soon will bloom no more. It may be 
glorious in death, but its passing is premature. Examination will be 
likely to show it infested with noxious insects. Decay has already set 
in. "Many among you are sickly, and some sleep." — Selected. 



X. FAITH'S VISION OF OUR HEAVENLY 

ALLIES. 

"And he answered, Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they 
that be with them. . . . And the Lord opened the eyes of the young 
man, and he saw, and behold . . . horses and chariots of fire round 
about Elisha."— 2 Kings 6:16, 17. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
Strength Through Visions. 
Bishop Phillips Brooks wrote:: 

We say that "seeing God" is the source and secret of all true cour- 
age. What do we really mean by seeing God? As soon as we own that 
the sight of the bodily eyes is impossible, we own that there is a figura- 
tive element in the expression. Let us see what it iB. To see God, then, 
I think, may be separated into these three elementB. 

I. First, it is to recognize his character as the ruling law of the uni- 
verse. The qualities of God we know. They are involved in our very 
conception of him. He is righteous, just, loving, true, pure. Now, when 
your eyes are opened, you see these divine principles running everywhere. 

II. Secondly, to see God is to see God's purposes in everything. The 
two are one In essence, but different In apprehension. But when the 
world opens to you as a plan of God, so that he who reads human prog- 
ress, in its largeness or its littleness, reads God's will; that, again, is 
seeing God. 

III. And still more to see God is to be conscious of our own spiritual 
relations to him, to know as a comfort and a motive that he Ives us, to be 
surrounded with his companionship, to find that what we do depends not 
merely upon what he is but upon his being present with us; in a word, 
to love our Father with an active love — that is a life for which the devout 
bouI finds no adequate description but that it is "seeing God." 

This then, is what we mean by "seeing God." It is to have the whole 
world as we think of it, as we live in it, full of his character, his purposes, 
and his love. 

♦ * * 

Rov. F. B. Meyer says: How much of our Christian work has been 
abortive because we have persisted in initiating it for ourselves, instead 
of ascertaining what God was doing and where he required our presence! 
We dream bright dreams of success. We try to command it. We call 
to our aid all kinds of expedients, questionable or otherwise. At last we 
turn back, disheartened and ashamed, like children who are torn and 
scratched by the brambles, and soiled by the quagmire. None of this 
had come about if only we had been, from the first, under God's unerring 
guidance. He might test ub, but he could not allow us to mistake. 

Naturally, the child of God, longing to know his Father's will, turns 
to the sacred Book, and refroRhes his confidence by noticing how In all 
ages God has guided those who dared to trust him up to the very hilt. 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



but who at the time must have been as perplexed as we are often now. 
We know how Abraham left kindred and country, and started, with no 
other guide than God, across the trackless desert to a land which he knew 
not. We know how for forty years the Israelites were led through the 
peninsula of Sinai, with its labyrinths of red sandstone and its wastes of 
sand. We know how Joshua, in entering the Land of Promise, was able 
to cope with the difficulties of an unknown region, and to overcome great 
and warlike nations, because he looked to the Captain of the Lord's 
hosts, who ever leads to victory. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

God is With Us In Life's Battlefields (90). 

During the Franco-Prussian War, at the siege of Paris, the French 
went out under cover of night to gather up their wounded. Moving about 
among the injured, they called in low tones, so as not to betray their 
presence to the enemy: "If there are any wounded here, we are your 
friends, come to help you. If you are injured, let it be quietly known, 
and we will take you to safety and comfort." And, my friends, there ia 
another who moves quietly about from place to place over the battle- 
field of life — his heart is full of tears and his healing touch is full of 
health, calling out of the deep night to injured souls: "I have come for 
you. O, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest." Some one said to Horace Bushnell: "Doctor, when you 
go to heaven, I think some angel will say, 'There comes a man the Mas- 
ter knows.' " "Well," answered Bushnell, with great delicacy, "I hope 
I may not be entirely unknown to the Master when I get home." Ah, 
yes, the one who said, "In my Father's house are many mansions," also 
said: "I know mine own and mine own know me." — Rev. Frederick L. 
Shannon. 

Safe Amid Dangers (91). 

A little yacht was cruising among the western isles of Scotland, and 
one sullen evening a gale set in from the broad Atlantic. It came moan- 
ing over the long, rolling swell, and caught the frail craft off a perilous 
leeshore. There was no shelter at hand, but the old skipper had known 
that treacherous coast from boyhood, and he said that there was a harbor 
some distance away, and he thought he could make it. And so, through 
the darkness, the little ship went plunging on her course, amid the wild 
welter of wind and wave. At length she swung into smooth water, and 
they let go the anchor, and, turning into their berths, went peacefully to 
/sleep. In the morning the passenger came on deck, and surveyed the 
scene — a little loch, girt about by dark, purple mountains. It was a quiet 
haven; but, looking toward the entrance, he beheld a narrow channel, 
with sharp rocks jutting here and there, and all awash with boiling surf. 
To think of passing that way! The least swerving of the tiller, and those 
jagged teeth would catch the frail timbers and grind them to splinters, 
and every life would perish. He shuddered, and, turning to the old 
skipper, he exclaimed: "Did we — did we pass there in the darkness?" 

And this is a parable of life. We know something of the goodness 
and mercy which have followed us all our days, but there is more, im- 
measurably more, than we have ever noticed; and we shall never realize 



FAITH'S VISIONS OF OUR HEAVENLY ALLIES 



55 



what a debt we owe to the unseen love which has attended us until we 
get home to the city of God, and from its shining battlements survey the 
long road which we have traveled over the wide wilderness. We shall 
then perceive, in the clear light of eternity, what perils we have escaped 
—the hidden snares, the lurking foes, the rushing torrents, the dizzy 
precipices which we have passed securely in the darkness, because an 
unseen hand was holding us and guiding our blind steps. Then we shall 
realize what we owe to the love of God. — Herald and Presbyter. 

Seeing God in His Providences (92). 
The Sidonians agreed amongst themselves to choose him to be their 
king who that morning should first see the sun. Whilst all others were 
gazing on the east, one alone looked on the west. But he first of all 
discovered the light of the sun shining on the tops of houses. God is 
seen sooner, easier, clearer in his operations than in his essence. Best 
beheld by reflection in his creatures. "For the invisible things of him 
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." — 
Thomas Fuller. 

The Conqueror of Conquerors (93). 

Before Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia he told the Russian am- 
bassador that he would destroy that empire. The ambassador's reply 
was, "Man proposes, but God disposes." "Tell your master," thundered 
the arrogant and self-confident Corsican, "that I am he that proposes and 
I am he that disposes." It was a challenge to the living God to show 
who is the ruler of this world; and God accepted the challenge. He 
moved not from his august throne, but he sent one of his most humble 
messengers, the crystal snowflake from heaven, to punish the audacious 
boaster! Napoleon flung his forces into Moscow, but in his retreat he 
left on the frozen plains the bulk of his vast army; and the official re- 
turns of the Russian authorities reported 23.516 French corpses buried, 
and 95,816 dead horses. When in 1815, Napoleon, escaping from Elba, 
again threatened to dispose events in European history at hia will, the 
sovereign of the world, whose hand is on the helm of history, ordained 
that Blucher should join the Iron Duke at the turning point of the con- 
flict of Waterloo, and that the decisive battle should turn the fate of 
Europe. That was the crowning victory that ushered In thirty years of 
peace. Napoleon found, at St. Helena, that God does dispose. — Arthur 
T. Plerson. 

Divine Interposition (94). 

One Bummer morning a twelve car train on a railway In Eastern 
Missouri containing the members of a Sunday School was bound for a pic- 
nic at a point about fifty miles distant. The train had not proceeded 
more than half way when a thunder-storm broke. The rain foil in tor- 
rents. The engineer was worried for fear the terrific downfall might 
cause a washout or a spreading of the rails, and he slowed down to about 
thirty-five miles an hour. As the train swung around a curve and ap- 
proached a small station which it was to pass without stopping, the 
engineer, peering through the broken curtain of rain, saw that the 
switch Just ahead was open. It meant a terrible disaster. He closed the 
throttle and put on the brakes in an instant. "Better stick to it," he 



56 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



ehouted to his fireman, "hundreds of children on board." "I mean to," 
was the answer. "God help us all." His last words were drowned by a 
terrific crash of thunder which came with a flash of lightning that seemed 
to strike the ground just ahead of the engine. The next thing they knew 
they were past the station, still riding safely on the main line rails. 
The train came to a stop, and the engineer and conductor hurried back 
to discover what had happened and how the train had passed the open 
switch. They found that the lightning had struck squarely between the 
switch and the rail, and had closed the switch. "It was the act of God," 
said the engineer. — Christian Herald. 

How the Foe Was Routed (95). 

Herodotus relates that the priests of Egypt told him how Sennach- 
erib, king of the Arabians and Assyrians, marched a large army into 
Egypt. The Egyptian army refused to help their king, Sethon, a priest 
of Vulcan. He, being reduced to a strait, entered the temple and la- 
mented before the god the calamities impending. While thus engaged he 
fell asleep, and the god appeared to him in a vision, telling him that he 
would stand by him, and would send him help. Trusting this vision, the 
priest-king took with him such men as would follow him and went to 
Pelusium, at the entrance of Egypt. But when they arrived there 
myriads of field mice pouring in on their enemies, devoured their quivers 
and bows and the handles of their shields, so that when they fled, next 
day, defenceless, many of them were killed. And to this day, he adds, a 
stone statue of this king stands in the temple of Vulcan, with a mouse 
in his hand, and an inscription: "Whoever looks on me, let him revere 
the gods." 

The mouse was the symbol of wasting and destruction, and was, per- 
haps, intended only to embody the idea of secret and irresistible ruin. — 
Geikie. 

God's People Safe (96). 

First of all, we may well apply our text to our civic and national life. 
It should teach us that our strength is not in numbers, nor in wealth, nor 
in naval or military power, but in the quality of our people; in fact that 
we are such a people as God can defend, and in the midst of whom he 
may be the inspiration and the glory. Greece and Rome and all the old 
nations that once were glorious and have passed into decay were most 
populous and most wealthy and most powerful when they were nearest 
their ruin. True greatness of a city or a State or a nation is not the kind 
that you can measure with a measuring line or with a census-taker's 
notebook. It does not depend upon quantity so much as upon quality. 
If God is like a wall of fire around a city or a nation, if he dwell in the 
midst of the people and is their true pride and glory, then that people is 
safe. But if we care more for money than we do for men; if we care 
more for business than we do for children; if we care more for material 
things than we do for pleasing God, then there is no power in military 
force or naval strength that can save the nation. — Banks. 



XI. FOLLOWING THE GLEAM; pR MAN'S 
RESPONSE TO GOD'S CALL TO SERVICE. 

"For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there 
enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; 
but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed; and who know- 
eth whether thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this." — 
Esther 4:14. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

There is a sense in which God may be said to he all the more 
strongly in evidence in this book of Esther just because his name is no- 
where mentioned. He is everywhere assumed to be present and inter- 
posing, and his existence and control in human affairs are taken for 
granted. Divine providence is nowhere more clearly emphasized than by 
this humble Jew, Mordecai, who never for a moment questions the work- 
ings of God's power or the eventual triumph of his purposes. Ho has 
gotten so far beyond the point of trying to prove to anyone that there is 
a God that he does not even mention his name. The great lesson of the 
text Is that God assigns each to special service and calls him to his life- 
work by special messages. He who fails to heed and respond misses 
life's Bupreme appointments. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis commented on this theme In these 
striking words: How often we hear a man say, "I am not in business for 
philanthropy, or altruism, or for my health." What is meant Is that the 
deed is being done for the reward that It brings. "Verily, verily I say 
unto you, they have their reward," but the return Is in the life that now 
Js. But over against these who work for themselves early and late and 
all the time, stands the occasional disinterested life. Down in Lexington 
Is an avenue of noble elms. About 1790 a soldier of the Revolution made 
his way over the Alleghenies. He waB ambitious to be one of the builders 
of a new State, and he planned the University of Transylvania, and 
dreamed his dreams of a great city springing up in the wilderness. Thirty 
years passed swiftly by, and he had come to the days allotted to men, 
and the kindly physfcian told him that the end was near. In that hour 
the old hero determined to do one more disinterested deed. When the 
family were at their tasks, with the help of hia black men he dressed, 
and made his way to the edge of the forest, and brought back two tall, 
straight young elms and planted them on either side of the path. In the 
afternoon he made his servants stretch a line and put out stakes running 
a quarter of a mile down to the roadway. The next morning the old man 
planted two more young elms, and so on until the two lines between 
the house and the roadway were complete. But by this time his son 
and hla servant were carrying him out to see the last tree planted. Ono 
afternoon he aBked his son to find the stump of a tree that held 100 
rings, and had known as many summers and wlntors, and then ho askod 
to be carried out to see that stump. Looking long upon a tree of simi- 
lar size, he said, musingly, to his son: "Ono hundred years from now 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



your grandchildren will drive under trees as great as these. Then the 
boughs that I have planted will meet and arch, and the birds of the sum- 
mer, going southward, will stop and rest upon these boughs, and old men 
and little children will stand under the shade. Perhaps the Sons of the 
Revolution may sometimes, in memory, encamp here." It was an autumn 
day. The night cry of the wild fowl leaving the north and winter, and 
seeking the summer land, fell through the pathless air. The old man 
whispered to his son: "It is time ... I will go with the birds," and so he 
slipped away — a pilgrim who had lingered long after his soldiers in arms 
had gone home on the Great Furlough. The other day driving under that 
avenue of noble elms, and looking at the little white shaft that has stood 
for nearly 100 years above his dust, I understood why his grandchildren 
and his great grandchildren missed the man whose seat is empty. 
"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, yea, saith the Spirit, they do 
rest from their labors, but their works do follow them." 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

The Safety of the Obedient (98). 
When Queen Elizabeth was sending an ambassador far away on im- 
portant and difficult business, he asked: "But what will become of my 
own business and my family?" To which the queen replied: "You take 
care of my business, and I will take care of yours." If we are doing 
God's work, he will take care of our interests. He is pledged to do it. — 
The Classmate. 

A Forfeited Talent (99). 

There are fishes that have had to pay a terrible forfeit for having 
their abode in dark caverns. Nature has taken her revenge upon them — 
she has closed up their eyes ... If any man take his talent and hide it 
in a napkin, although it is apparently doing him neither harm nor good. 
God will not allow him to have it. In the parable the man's crime was 
simply neglect — "thou wicked and slothful servant." It was a wasted 
life — a life which failed in the holy stewardship of itself. Such a life is 
a peril to all who cross its path. ... It is significant to notice that it 
was the man who had only one talent who was guilty of neglecting it. . . . 
These who have abundant store sow with a lavish hand. Our temptation 
as ordinary men is not to sow at all. The interest on our talent would 
be so small that we excuse ourselves with the reflection that it is not 
worth while. It is those who belong to the rank and file of life who need 
this warning most. — Drummond. 

Finding and Following the Path (100). 

The only serious matter is to discover the prepared path. We may 
do this by abiding fellowship with the Spirit. Remember how when Paul 
essayed to turn aside from the prepared path of life, and to go first to 
the left to Ephesus, and then to the right unto Bithynia, in each case we 
read, the Spirit suffered him not. For the most part the trend of daily 
circumstances will indicate the prepared path; but whenever we come 
to a standstill, puzzled to know which path to take of three or four that 
converge at a given point, let us stand still and consider the matter, 
asking God to speak to us through our judgments and to bar every path 



FOLLOWING THE GLEAM 



59 



but the right. When once the decision is made, let us never look back. 
Let us never dare to suppose that God could fail them that trust him. or 
permit them to make a mistake. If difficulties arise, they do not prove 
us to be wrong, and probably they are less by his path than they would 
have been by any other. Go forward. The way has been prepared; the 
mountains are a way; the rivers have fords; the lions are chained; the 
very waves shall yield a path; the desert shall be a highway to the land 
that flows with milk and honey. — F. B. Meyer. 

"The Lost Opportunity" (101). 

Remember, three things come not back; 

The arrow sent upon its track — 

It will not swerve, it will not stay 

Its speed, it flies to wound or slay; 

The spoken word, so soon forgot 

By thee, but it has perished not; 

In other hearts 'tis living still, 

And doing work for good or ill; 

And the lost opportunity 

That cometh back no more to thee — 

In vain thou weepest, in vain dost yearn, 

Those three will nevermore return. 

— From the Arabic. 

A Woman Challenged to a Great Service (102). 
After Bishop Thoburn had been sent out to India and had sur- 
veyed the field, he was convinced that if the women of the country 
were to be reached it must be through a woman. One day while 
Itinerating his tent was pitched in a mango orchard. He went out for 
a little walk in the shade of the trees. It so happened that a vulture 
had built her nest in the broken top of one of the trees, and in passing 
near the place he picked up a quill which had fallen from her wing. 
Taking his penknife he began to amuse himself by making a writer's 
pen, and having succeeded in this he lightly enough thought that he 
would go into his tent and see if he could write with the big pen. 
On trial the pen did its work very well. The first letter written with 
this strange pen was to his sister, and the incident was destined to 
become historic. This letter contained a brief account of the work 
among the villages, and described the difficult situation in which girls 
were placed. As the best possible way to meet the difficulty it was 
suggested that the most promising girls should be gathered into a 
well-equipped boarding school at some central point. The letter closed 
with the question written almost thoughtlessly, "How would you like 
to come and take charge of such a school if we decide to make the 
attempt?" By the first steamer which could bring a reply came the 
ready and swift response that she would come just as soon as the 
way was opened for her to do so. The offer of Miss Thoburn of her- 
self led, aB we all know, to the organization of the Woman's Foreign 
Missionary Society. — Thoburn and India. 



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Eager For Service (103). 

The Earl of Shaftesbury, having spent a long life in the service of 
his fellow-men, in his old age compelled to forego his efforts, said, 
with tears and a trembling voice, "When I consider how old I am, and 
that I must soon die, I feel that I cannot bear to leave this world 
with all the misery in it." — The Adult Bible Class Monthly. 

"Good — Go — Do" (104). "I know two lovely words you can get out 
of the word 'good,' " said a little girl who was playing with her blocks. 
"They are 'go' and 'do.' " And the little girl had unconsciously preached 
a sermon. It surely is "good" to "go" and "do." — The Classmate. 

Humble Investments; Great Results (105). 

A little girl in a Sunday school in Nantasket led a dying man to 
Christ. She was only about six years of age at the time. Her uncle 
had been brought home very sick, and she heard the doctor telling 
the family that he could not live. When no one else was in the sick 
room, she crept softly in and put one hand on his cheek and put her 
little face up close to his and whispered, "Cast your sins on Jesus, 
the spetless Lamb of God." The sick man, who had been in great dis- 
tress both of mind and body, burst into tears. All night he prayed for 
God's help and forgiveness, and when the morning came his heart 
was at peace. Once more the little God-sent messenger watched her 
chance to speak her word alone to him. "Did you do as I told you, 
Uncle William?" she whispered lovingly. "Yes, I did, I did!" he an- 
swered. "He washed away my sins." A little later he died, but died 
praying that God would bless his "little angel," as he called her, for 
teaching him the way to Jesus. 

* # # * 

According to the story of the siege of Pekin, as told by Rev. Dr. 
Frank Gamewell, the clergyman who had charge of the work of fortifi- 
cations of the British Embassy when it was besieged by the Boxers, 
it was a boy — and a poor, sick, consumptive boy at that — who saved 
the legation. The siege lasted fifty-six days, and during the first ten 
days one hundred and ten persons in the legation were killed and 
wounded. The brave prisoners held out, living on wheat and on mules 
and horses within the walls which they killed for meat This state of 
things could not last long, but none of the messengers sent to Tientsin 
ever returned, for none ever reached that city. At last a consumptive 
boy volunteered to go and get relief somehow. They told him he 
would never get there; he would either die or be killed long before 
he could travel the eighty miles of the journey. He persisted, how- 
ever, saying that he would probably have to die soon anyway. It is 
good to know that he successfully accomplished his errand, covering 
the one hundred and sixty miles to Tientsin and back in a month, and 
bringing relief to the almost exhausted inmates of the legation in a 
very few days after his return. — Pilgrim Teacher. 

Our Unreturnlng Opportunities (106). 

One was rummaging along the seashore gathering treasures of stone 
and shell. High on the beach lay a shell more beautiful than any yet 



FOLLOWING THE GLEAM 



61 



discovered. He was searching in a dreamy, listless way, looking here 
and there. "That shell is safe enough," he said. "I can pick that up 
at my leisure." But, as he waited, a higher wave swept up along the 
beach, recaptured the shell, and bore it back to the bosom of the ocean. 
How like the experiences of our lives is this! When the wave of an- 
other year has flowed back and off the shore of time, how many shells 
of plans, of opportunities, of purposes toward noble and better life, 
lying there, you thought within your easy grasp a year ago, has it not 
swept into the irreparable past! — Wayland Hoyt, D. D. 

The Obligations of Our Position (107). 
Every dispensation of providence is a kind of miracle wrought for 
our benefit. We must make the very most of it. It may be the position 
in life which is given to us. Every position, great or small, may be 
made almost as great or as little as we desire to make it, according 
as we make the most of it or the least of it. To do the necessary du- 
ties of any station, that is easy enough; but to gather up all the out- 
lying opportunities, to be ready to lend a helping hand here, to give 
a kind hand there, and a helping counsel there; to fill, as we say, our 
place in life, instead of leaving it half empty; to be entirely in our 
work for the time being, this is what makes all the difference between 
a great man and a commonplace man; a useful man and a useless 
man; a good servant and an indifferent servant; a statesman, or a 
teacher, or ruler who will be long remembered, or one who will be for- 
gotten as soon as he Is dead. — Dean Stanley. 

Life's Eventful Moment (108). 
Watch carefully for the eventful moment, the eventful opportunity, 
the eventful occasion. There is such a thing as the psychological mo- 
ment. It is true that 

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
Which, taken at the flood. 
Leads on to fortune." 
Just one hour was the opportunity to gain a life-long friend. Just for 
one moment did we grasp a fortune in our hand. Just that moment 
was it ours to save a soul. The Persians have put it this way: 
"A thousand years did a poor man wait 
Outside of heaven's gate; 
Then, while a moment brief he dozed, 
It opened, and — closed." 



XII. FAITH'S SUPERIORITY TO CIRCUM- 
STANCE. 

Shall We Receive Good at the Hands of God and Shall We Not Receive 

Evil? Job 2:10. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
Rev. Dr. C. C. Albertson, in preaching on this theme, said: The 
disagreeable is a portion of the necessity laid upon us by the consti- 
tution of society and the economy of life. The labor of life is largely 
drudgery. The mother, the nurse, the teacher, the breadwinner — these 
are all drudges. Think of the days and nights of pain and vigil in the 
life of every parent. Think of the patience tested to the limit in the 
experience of every teacher. Think of the daily practice of the musi- 
cian. Think of the hard years of apprenticeship, the continuous appli- 
cation, never to be remitted, on the part of the mechanic. It is by 
such things the world lives and moves onward towards perfection. 
Do we grow weary of the same daily round? We would grow equally 
weary of constant variety. Has it never occurred to us that variety it- 
self grows monotonous in time? I heard a lad, old beyond his years, 
complaining, "Everything is just the same day after day; the same 
food, the same studies, the same wall paper. I wish I could go away a 
while." Poor boy! Why did he not look up at night? There are al- 
ways shifting panoramas in the sky; always glittering pageants of the 
stars. There was a man who wrote a book on his vacation experi- 
ences, an admirable book of its kind, and he spent his vacation in his 
own back yard! He sought to get into the meaning of common things, 
Boll and rocks, and weeds and flowers, and rain and earth worms, and 
butterflies and birds. He found variety in monotony. There is an old 
hymn which sings: 

The common round, the daily task. 

Will furnish all we ought to ask, 

Room to deny ourselves, a road 

To lead us daily nearer God. 

Much depends upon for whose sake we suffer the disagreeable. 
Many a woman cooks for her own family cheerfully who would not aa 
cheerfully enter the domestic service of another household. Many a 
mother acts as nurse to her own children in sickness, dangerous and 
repulsive, who could not be induced to perform the same service for 
strangers. It makes all the difference In tho world for whose sake we 
serve and suffer. Convince us that our Master calls us to lowly service 
and we will do It with exceeding Joy. This consideration should bo 
sufficient to lead us to accept the evils of life, They are means of 
discipline and they are a part of tho King's business. 

* * * 

It BeemB to bo God's way, and we may humbly and firmly believe 
a kind and good way, to give his creatures heavy burdens to bear; to 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



make all, so to speak, carry weight In the race of life; and work and 
fight at a certain disadvantage. — Boyd. 

* * * 

Three things are true of the experience which is called "chasten- 
ing;" 1, it does not come by chance, but by design; 2, it is not pleasant 
at the time of its visitation; 3, in no case where it is endured with faith 
unshaken does it fail of its gracious compensation. There are true 
hearts passing through this experience without knowing it. They will 
have a glad awakening some good day. — Bishop O. P. Fitzgerald. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
The Discipline of Hardship (109). 

In April the peach orchard lends a faint pink flush to the distant 
hillside, and that stands for the moralities. In September the ripe fruit 
lends a golden blush of clustered food to the same hill. And such is 
the fruit of religion. Great is the importance of the root moralities, 
but roots and boughs imply the ripened fruit. 

The rule of life is health, prosperity, and sunshine. But God hath 
appointed wrestling, defeat, and suffering as important members of his 
corps of teachers. — Newell Dwight Hillis. 

Hard Times Good Times (110). 

A beekeeper told me the story of the hive — how, when the little 
bee is in the first stage, it is put into a hexagonal cell, and honey 
enough Is stored there for its use till it reaches maturity. The honey 
is sealed with a capsule of wax, and when the tiny bee has fed itself 
on the honey and exhausted the supply, the time has come for It to 
emerge into the open. But, oh, the wrestle, the tussle, the straining to 
get through that wax! It is the strait gate for the bee, so strait that 
in the agony of exit the bee rubs off the membrane that hid its wings, 
and on the other side it is able to fly! Once a moth got into the hive 
and fed on the wax capsules, and the bees got out without any strain 
or struggle. But they could not fly, and the other bees stung them to 
death. Are you congratulating yourself on having an easy time? No 
hardness, no difficulties, no cross? Beware lest, like the bees, you lose 
your wing-power and perish miserably in the dust. — P. B. Meyer. 

The True Interpretation of Trouble (111). 

In our experience much that perplexes us is often but the answer 
to our prayer. Sometimes we pray for patience and God sends us 
tribulation and we forget that he has said, "Tribulation worketh pa- 
tience." Sometimes we pray for submission and God sends us suffer- 
ing, and we forget that our Saviour, though he were a Son, yet "learned 
obedience by the things which he suffered." We must be careful to try 
to interpret our experiences as God's answers to our prayers. When 
Mr. Gladstone was once asked what is the remedy for the deeper sor- 
rows of the human heart, what a man should chiefly look to as the 
power that will enable him manfully to confront his afflictions, his an- 
swer was: "I must point to something which, in a well-known hymn, 
is called 'The old, old story,' told of in an old, old book, and taught 



FAITH'S SUPERIORITY TO CIRCUMSTANCE 



65 



with an old, old teaching which is the greatest and best gift ever given 
to mankind." — Selected. 

Struggle's Mission (112). 
Ton are a block of rough marble. You may sometime come to be 
a statue of splendid proportions, but must be chiseled and hammered 
before that consummation can be reached. Grief, struggle, disappoint- 
ment, the whole range of sad experiences which fill life so full are the 
tools with which the great Artist will change your shape by slow de- 
grees, and convert you from a mere block to a thing of beauty. — George 
H. Hepworth, D.D. 

Consecrating Calamity (113). 
Dr. Moon, of Brighton, just as his youth was flowering Into man- 
hood, was smitten with total blindness. He was a man of brilliant gifts, 
and he had fixed his desires upon great attainments. But in the calam- 
ity, all his radiant hopes appeared to have been wrecked. What then! 
In his own dawnless midnight, in a glorious act of faith in God, he con- 
secrated "his talent of blindness" to the service of God. He invested 
It in the succor of all who shared his affliction, and he devised the 
system by which millions of blind people are now able to read, and to 
enter Into riches that were hitherto concealed. — Selected. 

The Vision of Disaster (114). 
Dr. Dawson tells of a man who once said his whole life lay sud- 
denly broken off in disaster; his work ended, his heart broken, himself 
In the hospital suffering cruel pain; and then he said: "Oh, Dawson, 
what visions of God I had as a I lay in the hospital! What a sense of 
eternity, and the reality of things spiritual! I tell you, if I knew today 
I could only gain such visions of God and truth by repeating my suf- 
ferings, I would crawl upon my hands and kneeB across this continent 
to get that disease." — The Evangelistic Note. 

The Inevitable (115). 

Goethe made it one of the ruleB of his life to avoid everything that 
could suggest painful ideas, but they found him out In the end. When 
the physician prescribed blisters for that strange Russian woman, Marie 
Bashkirsteff, to check the ravages of tuberculosis, the vain, cynical 
girl wrote: "I will put on as many blisters as they like. I shall be able 
to hide the mark by bodices trimmed with flowers, and lace, and tulle, 
and a thousand other things that are worn without being required; it 
may even look pretty. Ah, I am comforted." 

When Marie Antoinette passed through the streets on her wedding 
day In Paris, strict orders were sont out to the police that the lame, 
and the blind, and the crippled, and the ragged were to be carefully 
kept out of her way, lest the sight of them should detract from her Joy 
and happiness at her reception; but It was not a great while before that 
gay butterfly of happiness had a very close view of the wretched and 
the miserable. 

We have In our own time a popular fad, largely built up on the idea 
of keeping cheerful and happy by Bhuttlng your eyes to pain and sorrow, 
and the hard things of life; but, like all the rest, It Is euro to fall. Phil- 



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osophize as we will, pain is sure to find us out, and the arrows from the 
quiver of sorrow will pierce our hearts. — Crafts. 

Afflictions Overbalanced by Blessings (116). 

God's blessings are so much greater than any possible human 
afflictions that any man receiving the first is pronounced "blessed," no 
matter what he may have of the second. Has man ecstasy of agony? 
God can reverse it all into ecstasy of pleasure. Between two notes 
in jarring discord he can put a third that shall make all into delicious 
harmony. Martyrs have waved aloft their blazing fingers like torches, 
and shouted for the joy of victory, notwithstanding the fire. Bodies 
have writhed in pain that spectators could hardly endure to see, hut 
the soul has gloried in the rapture of God's visitations. John Huss 
kneeling beside the fagot-piled stake poured out his soul in prayer, 
using the words of the Thirty-first Psalm, and closed with its grand 
paean, "Blessed be the Lord: for he hath showed me his marvellous 
kindness in a strong city. O love the Lord, all ye his saints. Be of 
good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in 
the Lord." — Bishop H. W. Warren. 

The Bright Side of Trial (117). 

There is a hopeful side even to failure. As success is one of the 
ways to failure, so failure is one of the ways to success — not referring 
to those who get rich by dishonest bankruptcies. The prodigal was 
nearer true success when he sat in the swine pasture, a ragged bank- 
rupt, than when he revelled in his costly vices. "If they had not per- 
ished," said a man of his business enterprises, "I should have per- 
ished." It had cost him his money to save his morals, but "the life is 
more than meat." It was money or life, and he had saved his soul-life 
in the loss of his money. 

But even in a worldly point of view, failure often leads to success, 
by rousing a man to greater energy, or leading him to greater watchful- 
ness, or putting him in a more suitable place. 

A man who weighs one hundred and fifty pounds on the earth 
would weigh only two pounds on the planet Mars, and so could hardly 
stand; while on the sun he would weigh two tons and so would sink, 
like a stone in the sea, into its hot marshes. Each man is too light 
for some places, too heavy for others, and just right for others. Fail- 
ing in a work for which he is unfitted often brings him to his true place. 
Judge Tourgee's failure as a reconstruction lawyer led to his success 
as a great novelist and editor. — Crafts. 



XIII. THE GAIN OF GODLINESS. 



"Blessed is the man that walketh not In the counsel of the ungodly. . . . 
but his delight Is in the law of the Lord. . , . He shall be like a 
tree planted by the rivers of water . . . whatsoever he doeth 
shall prosper." — Psalms 1:1-3. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Three fundamentals of the adequate religion are in evidence in these 
verses: 

1. It is a bringer of "blessing;" temporal and eternal; material and 
spiritual; and, it might be added, individual and general, national and 
social. 

2. These blessings are secured by linking the human with the 
divine; by the gracious intention of the divine in the sphere of the 
human, "The law of the Lord." 

3. ThiB alliance of the divine with the human for the blessing of 
the latter is conditioned upon the latter's adopting of a certain attitude 
toward, entering into special relations with, the divine. Faith, peni- 
tence, love. "Delight." — Adapted from W. P. Paterson, D. D. 

* * * 

1. Great truths must underlie great deeds. Deep-seated convic- 
tions are the spring of action back of real achievement "The law of 
the Lord." 

2. Great truths are wrought into great character hy earnest medi- 
tation upon them; by mental and affectional absorption. "Doth he 
meditate day and night?" 

* * * 

The Supreme Blessedness: The only primary and sufficient safe- 
guard for any one of us is the religion of Christ. "Blessed." Religion 
opens the widest, freest outlook for the mind into the eternal truth, 
enlarging a man's range of spiritual sight, and enabling him to judge 
of all things in both worlds in their due proportion. "In thy law doth 
he meditate." It supplies us for that reason with the only true and 
perfect standing by which to test the value of things, and so corrects 
the one-sided materialistic standard of business. "Like a tree." It 
transforms business Itself from an ignoble to a noble calling, because It 
substitutes for the principle of mere profit the ideal of service. — Se- 
lected. 

* * * 

"Planted by the streams." The beautiful picture of the tree bearing 
Its fruit because its roots draw sustenance from the near river, has be- 
come the common symbol of the fruitfulness of the soul which drinks 
continually from the river of living water which flows from the throne 
of God. The soul Is as dependent upon God as the tree Is upon the 
waters. It Is made for God as the tree Is made for the river. Large, 
vigorous, efficient life, fruitful life is his who communes with God. 
Perhaps there Is a little danger In our days with our great emphafiis 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



on service and the doing of good works to neglect this meditation in 
God's law, this communion with him which makes a rich and fruitful 
life. We must guard against this. For our lives will surely grow both 
weak and barren if we neglect this contact with the life-giving spirit. 
The very effectiveness of our service and our abiding social enthusi- 
asms rest in our oneness with God. He cannot give much who is not 
continually enriching himself. 

"Doth not wither." See how our Psalmist emphasizes the fact that 
he who abides in God possesses the blessedness of an unfading youth. 
There is no such thing as age in God. He whose life is hid with Christ 
in God, partakes of God's unchanging youth. He has discovered the 
bread of life; the fountain of eternal youth. His leaf never withers. — 
Rev. Frederick Lynch. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

A Deep-Rooted Faith (118). 

We have here a reminder of the righteous man's security. "He 
shall be like a tree that is planted." His faith lays hold upon the great 
realities. His convictions thrust themselves so deeply into the great 
truths of God's Word that it is impossible to dislodge them. His pur- 
poses go down through superficial fleeting things to the eternal will of 
the Almighty, and so he stands steadfast and unmoved, even though the 
fiercest storms may beat upon him. To move a full-grown tree fr6m 
its place is an exceedingly difficult matter. You scrape away the super- 
ficial covering of soil, only to discover that there are great roots, like 
mighty arms, reaching down into the earth, and as you follow their 
endless ramifications you recognize that, though you can destroy the 
tree, you cannot uproot it. What a striking picture of a righteous man, 
with deep-settled convictions! You know always just where to find him. 
The wind may drift the sand or the snow, upon the surface of the earth, 
hither and thither, but the great tree remains just where it was planted. 

Seventy years ago, with his own hands, my father planted three 
maple trees, in front of the old "Vermont home, where he was born, 
and where his father and grandfather had lived before him. In front 
of the dooryard a river flows over innumerable stones, singing its merry 
song as it goes to join the Connecticut. Around it are the great hills 
with their rugged shapes, clothed, to the very summit, with luxuriant 
foliage. It is a beautiful scene to the eyes of every beholder. But 
when I revisit it next summer, I should not be more surprised to see 
one of the great hills removed from its place, than I should be to find 
that the three great maples no longer cast their shade over what was 
once my father's dwelling. They were planted there nearly three- 
quarters of a century ago, and no storm that beats upon the granite 
hills is able to uproot them. And so I speak to some, who a quarter 
or a half century ago, planted the roots of their faith, upon the Rock 
of Christ Jesus. Feeble enough it seemed, when the first public 
confession of love to Christ was given. But through the years through 
storm and tempest, through summer's heat and winter's frost, your faith 
has been deepening, until, if the opportunity were given, there are many 
Who would gladly respond in the triumphant words of the apostle, "I 
know him in whom I have believed." — Rev. Walter M. Walker. 



THE GAIN OF GODLINESS 



69 



Growth in Grace (119). 
Slowly, throughout all the universe, the temple of God Is being 
built. Wherever in any world, a soul, by free-willed obedience, catches 
the Are of God's likeness, it is set into the growing walls a living stone. 
When in your hard fight, in your tiresome drudgery, or in your ter- 
rible temptation, you catch the purpose of your being and give yourself 
to God, and so give him the chance to give himself to you, your life, a 
living stone, is taken up and set into the growing wall. Wherever souls 
are being tried and ripened, in whatever commonplace and homely 
ways, there God is hewing out the pillars for his temple. O, if the 
stone can only have some vision of the temple of which it is to lie a 
part forever, what patience must fill it as it feels the blows of the 
hammer and knows that success for it is simply to let itself be wrought 
Into what shape the Master wills! — Phillips Brooks. 

Consecrated Concentration (120). 

"Day and Night." Religion is a challenge to the noblest in every 
man. Nothing so calls out the last pound of one's energies as the 
appeal to live a consistent Christian life. — Charles Bayard Mitchell. 

A Field For Splendid Achievement (121). 

The fire which laid London in ruins gave the famous architect, 
Christopher Wren, an opportunity, unprecedented in modern history, of 
displaying his powers. Let the Church of Christ in like manner behold 
its opportunity, presented by a world in ruins, for the displaying of all 
its socially regenerative and constructive powers. The architecture of 
the soul affords a field for effort that immeasurably exceeds the possi- 
bilities of art expression through stone and mortar and pigments. The 
"curved line <ot beauty" bends closely in every case over the "straight 
line of duty." There are infinite possibilities of development in life 
when it is lived in devotion to the true, the good, and the beautiful. — 
ZIon's Herald. 

Christianity Ennobles Character (122). 

Dr. Fitchett, in his "Beliefs and Unbelief," has well remarked: 
"That the denial of Christianity does not shape conduct instantly. The 
very unbelief which rejects Christianity cannot escape its influence. 
Something of the fragrance of Christianity Is in the very air of the 
world. The wholesome salt of its ethics is in the blood of the race. 
The man of no faith is still the child of whole centuries of faith." 

Few of us can realize what a country Is like in the absence of 
Christian ideals and Christian sanctions and influences. James Russell 
Lowell, author of "Tho Blglow Papers," and formerly American Am- 
bassador to England, Is said at one time to have challenged a company 
of unbelievers to find "a place on this planet ten miles square where a 
decent man can live In decency, comfort, and security, supporting and 
educating his children unspoiled and unpolluted, a place where age Is 
reverenced, infancy respected, womanhood honored, and human life 
held In due regard; . . . where the gospel of Christ has not gone 
and cleared the way and laid the foundations and made decency and 
security possible." Mrs. Isabella Bishop, the distinguished traveler. 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



has testified from lier own wide observation*. "There is scarcely a 
single thing that makes for righteousness in the life of non-Christian- 
ized nations. Everywhere perversion of justice, oppression of the weak, 
degradation prevail. Self-love is the sole law of morality, and self- 
Interest the chief motive of religion." 

Imagine the world's outlook with manhood, womanhood, social, 
mental, moral, and religious life shaped after the pattern of the Koran 
or any of the false systems now dissolving before our eyes. 

Wendell Phillips's argument for Bible morality compresses the sub- 
stance of volumes into a sentence: "The answer to the Shastra is In- 
dia; the answer to Confucianism is China; the answer to the Koran is 
Turkey; the answer to the Bible is the Christian civilization of Pro- 
testant Europe and America." 

Newman Smythe has said that "unbelief saves itself from universal 
contempt by really living on a wider faith than it creates or allows. 
. . . What if unbelief should live up to its creed or no creed?" 

It is very suggestive of the sterility and hopelessness of all radical 
unbelief when we hear men talk of the failure of Christianity and 
Christian morals, for by their own confession it is the Christian law 
which alone furnishes the standards by which they determine the con- 
duct of men when they sit in judgment upon their action; and It is 
this very law which is daily judging the life of the nations and of the 
world. 

The late Gail Hamilton once said: "It requires no learning to 6ee 
that if the stamp of Christ and everything which has come from it into 
the life of the world could be suddenly and completely burned out of 
the memory and consciousness and record of man, society would be a 
chaos." When we therefore hear of "good skeptics," "virtuous unbe- 
lievers," "exemplary agnostics," it is well for us to remember that these 
fruits are from the very roots which they affect to renounce and ignore. — 
William Harrison, D.D. 

Godliness is Gain (123). 

Does it pay? is the instinctive question of the man of the world 
when a proposition is presented. The man of the world may be chal- 
lenged to deny an affirmative answer to this question put about religion. 
It is wondrous strange that any should fail to say it, whether he is re- 
ligious or not. Expert economists tell us that the cause of hard times 
lies deeper than the tariff or the currency. It is found in waste. This 
will hardly be denied. But where is there such waste as in our sins and 
follies? "An increase of one-tenth in demand is sufficient to change 
adversity into prosperity, but this country spends every year more than 
one-tenth of its product in drink alone. Who can measure what it 
would mean to our industries if the billion dollars we thus squander 
each year were spent for shoes and food and homes? Factories would 
be running overtime and then still be swamped in orders. New York 
has been wailing of late over the thousands of her people who go to 
bed hungry, yet last year she spent at Coney Island, her great play- 
ground, forty-five million dollars, or three times what the nation paid 
Napoleon for Louisiana and six times what we paid for Alaska. Thus 
what we waste in our sins and our follies far exceeds what we lack 
in necessities and comforts." — Selected. 



THE GAIN OF GODLINESS 



71 



The Religious Root (124). The clergyman must recognize the fact 
that every political, social, economic and humanitarian question has its 
moral and religious "bearings." — Samuel Fallows. 

Christianity's Blessings (125). 

Material as well as spiritual blessings follow in Christianity's 
wake. Dr. Joseph Parker said: "Christianity has turned over more 
money than any other thought of man. Christianity has kept more work 
people, paid more wages, patronized more art than any other religion, 
or any other conception of the human mind. The highest artist could 
not have lived without the religious genius and the religious fact. This 
is true in sculpture, in painting, in music, in architecture, in poetry. Take 
out of the world all the cathedrals, all the chapels, all the churches; 
take away all the monuments Christianity has erected; take away all 
pictures that represent religious or Christian subjects; burn all the 
oratorios and all the music that derives its sublimity from Christian 
inspiration; take away all the books that have been printed, all the 
engravings that have been published, representing Christian thought 
and history; go into the nursery and into the drawingroom, and into the 
studio, and take out everything that Christian thought has done, and 
then, viewed commercially, you have inflicted the greatest possible loss 
upon the civilized world. Everything shall live whither the river com- 
eth; plenty of business, plenty of work, clearing forests, building cities, 
exchanging merchandise; the seas alive with vessels, and the desert 
encroached upon for more city room." 



XIV. LIFE MEANS OPPORTUNITY. 
(BACCALAUREATE ) 

"He brought me forth Into a large place." — Psalm 18:19. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
Rev. Charles C. Albertson, D.D., in preaching to the graduating 
class of Adelpbi College, on this text, gave prominence to the following 
phases of truth: 

This has been the song of all God's servants In every age — "Ha 
brought me forth into a large place." Obedience to God never con- 
tracts our powers. Christ does not lead men backward, but onward, 
outward, upward. Matthew was led into a large place when he left the 
toll-booth to follow Jesus. Peter had never seen anything larger than 
the Sea of Galilee until Jesus made him a fisher of men. Paul at his 
best was only a theological hair-splitter, a heresy-hunter, until Christ 
appeared to him and filled his heart with a passion for the preaching 
of the gospel and the glory of the cross. If the voice of patriarch and 
prophet and apoBtle could be heard today It would cry, "Never say 'No* 
to God. If he call thee, go. He will lead thee into a large place." 

I. No experience Is more common to the most of us than a certain 
contempt for the littleness of the things with which we are compelled to 
live. The farm boy who leaves the country goes to the city to Beek a 
more abundant life. He dreams the city calls him to large enterprises. 
He does not know how cramped are the lodgings of most dwellers In 
the city, how small a part of it he will occupy, how easily the solitary 
individual is lost in the crowd. 

II. Blessed is imagination, which expands the walls and lifts the low 
roof of life, and fills it with dreams of what might have been and of 
what may be. Blessed is travel, for it enlarges the horizon of the trav- 
eler If he be a close observer. It is a distinct step In one's mental 
development when he first acquaints himself with the language and 
customs of another country than his own. 

III. Blessed Is literature, for it broadens life. To most of us time to 
travel Is denied. But books are not denied us — books of travel, of his- 
tory, of science, of fiction. A late writer advises us to read that fiction 
which portrays life as different as possible from our own. We hardly 
need that counsel. A certain Instinct guides us in that direction. Dis- 
satisfaction with the limitations of our lives Impels us to read stories 
of soldiers and knights and heroes and heroic deeds. Far-off ages and 
far-off civilizations attract ub. We broaden our lives by changing our 
viewpoint 

IV. Blessed Is everything that tends to widen our sympathies and give 
ub the consciousness of new relations. Blessed Is the religion that 
takes us out of ourselves, makes us superior to our limitations, creates 
a new world for us. Supremely blessed Is the gospel of Jesus Christ, 
for of all religions that the world has seen it offers Its dlsclpleB the 
most abundant life. 



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V. The distinctive glory of Christianity is its expansive spirit ThS 
keynote of it is the greatest possible development of the individual. It 
aims to make every man a king, every heart the throne of the Eternal, 
every life a consecrated temple. "The humblest life that lives may be 
divine." It is a great undertaking, and it is unique in Christianity. 
There is nothing in Confucianism to lead the individual soul to great- 
ness. Prudential maxims and conventional morality may make a man 
a better machine, but they do not increase his spiritual resources. 
Buddha taught the extinguishment of the individual. Epictetus taught 
the suppression of emotion, the denial of desire. Christ's doctrine is: 
Diminish nothing that is right; repress nothing that may be turned to 
good; do not diminish your interests, but multiply them; live the largest 
possible life; conquer your sorrows by making the sorrows of others 
your care; master your desires by giving them a new direction; extend 
life on every side. Is not this the Master's teaching? Is it not the uni- 
form testimony of experience that Christian discipleship leads every 
faithful soul into a large place? It is sin that narrows life, clips the 
wings with which the spirit would soar to lofty heights. Hence the 
conquest of sin by grace is like the liberation of a slave. Iron doors 
and brazen gates are torn asunder and the captive moves out into 
God's universe to learn how life enlarges with each new step in grace. 

VI. Jesus Christ wants us to see, to hear, to think, to feel, to act, In 
view of Infinite relations. He wants us to know that selfishness turns 
life into a squirrel cage, that envy, greed, falsehood, cruelty, base appe- 
tites imprison men, make life small, and that the spirit of holiness 
extends all the boundaries of the inner man. Christ was always calling 
men — Philip, Nathanael, the rich young ruler, Zacchaeus, Bartimeus, 
Lazarus, Nicodemus. Did any of them follow him and fail to find the 
meaning of abundant life? Did any one of them turn back who did not 
turn away from glory and honor and immortality? 

* * * 

Rev. John Howard Melish, in addressing the graduating class of 
Packer Institute on the same general theme, said: 

My friends of the graduating class, I desire to talk to you about 
religion. For months and years now you have been in search ot 
knowledge. The past has looked down upon you in the pages of history, 
and you know something of its great events and noble characters; lit- 
erature, with its exquisite forms and inspired imagination, has beck- 
oned to your spirits; science, the cold and accurate voice of organized 
knowledge, has made its unimpassioned and enlightening appeal to 
your reason; the languages, ancient and modern, have tried to unlock 
for you the door into the life and thought of other peoples. Knowledge 
is indeed a glorious thing. It emancipates the mind, steadies the will, 
and inspires the heart. But I wish to put before you a yet more glorious 
thing. I once spent a night on the top of a mountain. At sunrise the 
villages in the valley below were shrouded in gloom, their street-lamps 
still burning, their inhabitants asleep, while we on the mountains were 
rejoicing in the light. Life, it seems to me, possessed merely of know- 
ledge, is like the villages in the valley at sunrise. But life, which is 
illuminated by religion, stands, like the angel of the Apocalypse, In the 
sun. "I saw an angel standing in the sun." 



LIFE MEANS OPPORTUNITY 



75 



What lies before you now, as the doors of Packer close behind you, 
is life. Class prophetesses try to scan the future and tell each member 
her destiny; one is to attain fame and another wealth; one to know 
the blessedness of children and the other the joy of a career; one is 
to be a sunny influence wherever she goes, and another is to be force- 
ful and practical. Whether or not these fond wishes of your classmates 
will be realized, the future alone can tell. But this you and I know: 
here is life, a marvelous composite of many elements, an unfathomed 
mystery, a wonderful possiblity. It is like a piece of tapestry woven of 
many threads, some somber, some gay, all making a design, the exact 
character of which no one will ever know. Life for you will have many 
experiences, now filled with happiness, now surcharged with suffering. 
What does it all mean, how interpret it, how meet it with interest and 
courage? The final answer to this question is that of religion; that in 
this life, in its deepest recesses and all its experiences, both good and 
bad, joyful and sad, we meet a Life which is not ourselves, a spirit and 
purpose Divine. It is this which gives life a glorious meaning. 

I desire to put religion to you, first, as it affects the life of each 
one as an individual, and second, as it affects the life which we all live 
in common. 

* * * 

Rev. S. Parkes Cadman, D.D., in a baccalaureate Bermon, said: 
The University will come with speedy succor to enable the flower 
of the rising generation to solve its own problems, to control civiliza- 
tion for God and humanity, and to serve its day by fulfilling its various 
callings. The life of mere cognition and contemplation is lived by a 
very few. For the vast majority knowing is the aid of doing, an equip- 
ment of thought and plan for action. The largest personal concentra- 
tion, the bringing of the mind to heed at call, the focusing of ideas there 
in spite of distaste, weariness or pain, the incitement of that courage, 
which wades into the disagreeable intent on extracting the sweetness 
from the destroyer. A rooted trouble of modern America Is the nervous 
fevered uselessness, which arises from this lack of voluntary concentra- 
tion. Interesting and versatile people who cannot be attracted to im- 
portant and significant truth are our despair, and in the time of trouble 
they are like the chaff which the wind drlveth away. Dean Shaler, of 
Harvard, wrote: "The youths of the day have far less capacity for 
serious work than their fathers. There has been a curious degradation 
In the less studious half of the college men." The current cheap so- 
phisticated nostrums which take refuge in a spurious transcendentalism 
have one intelligent mark; they estimate aright the constitutional de- 
fect of our day. That day will surely come to an end, and if experi- 
ence is any guide other days will dawn wherein we must arise and play 
the man. Let us rejoice that for these days we can prepare to be crossed 
and thwarted, but never to be downcaBt. Then the wisdom of our toll 
will be made manifest, and then will the foolish ones eat of the fruit 
of their folly and be satiated with their own devices. Those who have 
learned aright what to provide and what to teach will be able: 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



To set the Cause above renown, 

To love the game beyond the prize. 
To honor while you strike him down 

The foe that comes with fearless eyes. 
To count the life of battle good, 

And dear the land that gave you birth 
And dearer yet the brotherhood 

That binds the brave of all the earth. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Specialization for the Sake of Service (126). 

Over the seas, on the sands of Egypt, stands the Pyramid of 
Cheops. There are some 2,000,000 blocks of stone piled one on another, 
averaging 40 cubic feet to every block. It required the labor of 100,000 
men, we are told, working thirty years, to construct it. And when it 
was finished, what was it for? A sepulcher — the tomb of one man es- 
pecially. There you see the embodiment of that culture which made the 
many work and slave for the one. 

Today we have reversed that order. Now it Is the one for the 
many. Go back only a few years into a little house in Italy. There is 
a child of an Irish mother and an Italian father. He is playing with 
some wires and batteries until his father comes into the room and 
Bmashes the entire outfit, disgusted by what he thinks is the boy's 
waste of time. It is Marconi. And when, four years ago, the Republic 
went down, and one year ago the Titanic called over the waste of waters 
for help in the hour of agony, it was the voice of the little child that 
summoned help from afar. It was the one for the many. It was special- 
ization in magnificent and mighty service. 

After all, it is the human interest which must save our education 
from defeat. We must keep our humanity vigorous and true. It is 
when educated men refuse to serve that the world drops back like lead. 
We are members one of another. We have a city to be ennobled by 
righteous living. We have a State to be kept free from shame. We have 
a country to love and to labor for. We have a society sadly torn by 
selfishness and greed. We have perplexing problems of industry and 
government and charity. I entreat you to accept responsibility with 
clean hands and pure hearts — for we are one body and we share our 
duty to preserve the unity of life in fellowship of varied service. — 
L. Mason Clarke, D.D. 

The Liberty of Truth (127). 

Last Friday I was in Annapolis. Standing on the grounds of the 
military academy, I looked across the harbor toward the Spanish bat- 
tleship. That Spanish battleship was once the flagship of the king's 
fleet. Sunk at Santiago, a wrecking boat recovered the ship, towed it 
to Annapolis, where it is used as a training vessel for sailor boys. One 
day a group of foreign diplomats took a private car and Journeyed 
from Washington over to Annapolis. There an old admiral met them 
and acted as guide in showing these foreigners objects of interest at 
the academy. In the course of their walks about the grounds, the ad- 
miral brought his visitors to a point where they could look out on the 



LIFE MEANS OPPORTUNITY 



77 



Mercedes. "That is the Spanish battleship," said the officer. "It was 
sunk at Santiago. Afterward the flagship was raised, towed here to 
Annapolis, where it is used as a training vessel for recruits." Not until 
that moment did anyone realize what all this would mean to the Span- 
ish gentleman, and no one wished to give pain to the diplomat. The 
old, grizzled Spaniard spoke slowly, as if to himself: "I was at San- 
tiago. My ship went down; I was drawn into an American rowboat. 
Eut Spain gave this new continent to the Republic and now Spain's 
flagship of the king is become the least of the servants of liberty." 
The old diplomat was a brave man, and it is said that he exclaimed: 
"The new world is liberty and self-government. Soon or late all the 
battleships of all the monarchies must become serving vessels for the 
cause of man!" And oft in my dreams I see Liberty leading the pil- 
grim band out of the wilderness — Liberty, her sword of justice red with 
wrath against injustice, her girdle truth, her garment purity, her at- 
mosphere love and good will, and come soon or late all the monarchies 
must march in her triumphal procession up the hills of time. — Newell 
Dwight Hillis. 

The Call of Life (128). 

James A. Garfield heard the call of the sea when he was a lad, and 
only the love of a widowed mother kept him from following a seafaring 
life. Why is the sea so attractive to many? Because of its bounty, 
Its unmeasured space. It is a touching fact that at the end of his life 
at Elberon, the eyes of the dying President rested lovingly, longingly, 
on the sea. Mr. Blaine suggests, in his eulogy, that then his friend 
"heard the great waves breaking on the farther shore and felt upon 
his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning." Thomas Marshall 
of Kentucky, a man of genius and power, expressed his desire to be bur- 
led In an open field and not in a crowded cemetery. "I have been 
crowded all my life," he said, "give me room for my grave." If one 
who has led a life of intense activity and great prominence feels thi3 
sense of limitation, is It strange that others are dissatisfied, whose ordi- 
nary lives are best symbolized by "one raindrop falling on moor, or 
meadow, or mountain, one flake of snow melting into the immeasurable 
deep." 

I have heard a young lawyer say, "When I was In college I had 
great ambitions. I planned to make myself an authority on interna- 
tional law, but now that I am out I am compelled to try mean little 
cases before mean little Juries." He had not found the large place he 
sought. The youth who would be a painter must be a clerk, and the 
man with an artist's soul Is selling tea and coffee. Longfellow tells 
us of one "whom nature made a poet but whom Destiny made a school- 
master." Our faculties seem fitted for a greater sphere than that In 
which we move. Literature is full of the expression of thlB fact. "Songs 
of Unrest" would fill volumes. Who of us busy daily with little vexa- 
tious problems would not prefer to deal with great ones? Who of us 
fighting battles dally which only God can see would not prefer to fight 
an epoch-making battle? It Is the Insignificance of our lives that frets 
us. So, whatever enlarges life in any right direction Is a benefaction.— 
Melish. 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



Your "After-Man" (129). 

Your "After-man," have you ever thought of him; the sort of crea- 
ture you will be ten years, twenty years, or even thirty years from now? 
His destiny is in your hands, in your keeping. You can, by your ac- 
tions, either make his life happy or miserable. It is on you alone he 
depends, and he has to depend without a chance to plead his case. 

What sort of a brain and body are you going to leave for inheri- 
tance to that dim, shadowy person whose life will be in the future? 
Will it be a body strong and active, a mind sharp and acute, a nervous 
system that is in normal order; or will he have to do with a sickly 
body, a feeble brain, because you forgot him, because you thought you 
lived only in the present, thought that your actions would live and 
have influence only in the present? 

His condition depends upon you. If you want a good investment. 
Invest in your "After-man." Act today, so that twenty years from now, 
with a strong body and trained mind your "After-man" can step in and 
continue your work. To do this only a little care, a little forethought, 
a little restraint are necessary. 

In the first place, evil habits should be shunned, for if you begin 
them you plant the seeds that will grow and mature in after years. 
Then the best use should be made of the present in training body and 
mind along useful lines, so that in years to come you will not be handi- 
capped by lack of knowledge. It will pay, there is no doubt, pay ten- 
fold. Indeed, you will never be sadder than if, twenty years from now, 
your "After-man" broken in body and mind, has occasion to exclaim: 

"The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree I planted; they 
have torn me and I have bled." — Egbert Wallace. 



) 



XV. THE CONFIDENCE OF THE SAVED. 



"The Lord Is my Shepherd, I shall not want. — Psalm 23:1. 
ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
There is only one sane way in which to face life without fear and 
without reproach. The follower of Christ who, with the great Apestle, 
knows that his Master is able to keep him, has discovered that way. 

One's own keenness of intellect and shrewd resourcefulness are piti- 
fully inadequate as with blinking vision he trie's to penetrate the dense 
fogbank of the future. He knows not even what shall be on the mor- 
row. 

Hia own strong right hand, on which, in health and prosperity, he 
is tempted to rely with so much confidence, is like a chubby infant's 
dimpled fist against the forces of disease, accident and varied mis- 
chance, which may lurk in that future at any turn of the path, ready 
to spring out upon him. 

But if he has entered into the everlasting compact with the omnP 
potent, omniscient and all-loving Saviour, if Christ and he are on terms 
of friendship, then all is different. 

He is kept. He can say "The Lord is my Shepherd." He can sound 
forth that blessed battle song of faith: "I am persuaded that he is able 
to keep me." And he can meet all life's experiences dauntlessly. He 
is kept. 

* * * 

In preaching on this text Mr. Spurgeon said: 

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not really want," There are 
many things we wish for that we do not want, but there is no promise 
given that we shall have all we wish for. God hath not said that he 
would give us anything more than the bread or the water: "Bread 
shall be given him; his waters shall be sure;" and he has not broken 
that promise yet, has he? So, lift up thy head, and do not be afraid. 
All the way he hath led thee, and all the way he shall lead thee; this 
Bhall be thy constant Joy. He Is my shepherd, I shall not really want 
that which is absolutely necessary. Believer, here is thy Jointure, here 
is thine inheritance, here is thine income, here is thy yearly living: 
"He Is thy shepherd, and thou shalt not want." What is thy income, 
believer? "Why," you say, "It is different with some and others of 
us." Well, but a believer's Income is still the same. This is It: "The 
Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." That is my Income, and It is 
yourB, poor little one. That is the income of the poorest pauper in 
the workhouse who hath an interest in the grace of God. The Lord is 
her shepherd, she shall not want; that Is the income of the poor found- 
ling child that has to come to know the Lord In early life, and hath no 
other friend. The Lord la her shepherd, she Bhall not want: that Is the 
widow's inheritance. The Lord is her shepherd, she shall not want: 
that is the orphan's fortune. The Lord Is his shephord, ha shall not 
want: that Is the bellevor'B portion, his Inheritance, his blessing. 

"Well now," some may say, "but what Is it worth?" Bolovod, If 



80 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



we could now change away this promise for a world of gold, we would 
not; we would rather live on this promise than live on the finest for- 
tune in creation. We reckon that this is an inheritance that makes us 
rich indeed! "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

The Safety of the Believer (130). 
A manufacturer of anchors and chains was exceedingly proud of 
a large photograph in one of his rooms, representing a ship riding at 
anchor in a tremendous storm. Some twenty vessels on that fatal day 
parted with their anchor and made shipwreck; whilst the anchor forged 
by my friend bore triumphantly all the stress of the terrible tempest. — 
Watkinson. 

Trust In Time of Trouble (131). 

"I simply don't know what to do with myself when the wind is 
from the east," complained a nervous invalid. "Well, you can't stop the 
wind," replied the practical physician, "but you surely can get into a 
cozy south room as far away from it as possible, and find some pleasant 
employment." This simple bit of advice is as good for the soul as for 
the body. There are east winds of gloom and unrest that will not down 
at command, but we can learn to retreat into some south corner of 
trust until they pass. — J. R. Miller, D.D. 

Trust Energizes the Soul (132). 

Science has recently proven that every thought we entertain doea 
something to our body. Fear spoils digestion, anger benumbs the brain, 
jealousy disturbs the circulation, insincerity retards the breath, coward- 
ice unsettles the nerves, anxiety robs sleep of its benefits, misunder- 
standing so upsets the action of the heart that various disorders may 
ensue. To the contrary, each positive, hopeful, energizing thought 
makes us live longer and better. Joy lubricates, despair clogs, the phy- 
sical as well as the mental organism. 

Try to realize the goodness and love of God — that you are hia 
child, and that he has other children. That he has a niche for you to 
fill and he wants you to be happy in filling it. His joy was to go about 
doing good; and true happiness comes only to him who enters into the 
joy of his Lord.— C. S. 

The Shepherd's Tender Care (133). 

General Garibaldi one evening met a Sardinian shepherd lamenting 
the loss of a lamb out of his flock. The great-souled Garibaldi at once 
turned to his staff and announced his intention of scouring the mountain 
in search of the lamb. A grand expedition was organized. The lan- 
terns were brought, and old officers of many a campaign started off full 
of zeal to hunt the fugitive. But no lamb was found, and the soldiers 
were ordered to their beds. The next morning Garibaldi's servant 
found him in bed fast asleep. When he was awakened, the general 
rubbed his eyes; and so did the servant, when he saw the old warrior 
take from under the covering the lost lamb, and direct him to carry it 
back to the shepherd. The general had kept up the search through 
the night until he had found it. 



THE CONFIDENCE OF THE SAVED 



SI 



Equal to All Life's Demands (134). 
Strength for every duty and trial is ours in Christ. One of the 
greatest ol chemical discoverers, M. Berthelot, pressed on the attention 
of scientists the question of the possibility of tapping the central heat 
of the earth and making use of k as a perennial source of energy, II 
this should ever come to pass there will be power enough for all pos- 
sible purposes. Power to drive unlimited enginery, to illuminate the 
mightiest cities, to remove mountains. But revelation shows a far 
grander thing — it shows how the central blue has been tapped, and how 
the fullness of the heavenly power has become available for the moral 
uses of man. The Old Testament caught sight of this great truth; 
the New Testament shows how it has been fully realized in the gift of 
Pentecost. Let me not then faint. With the power of Christ per- 
fected in my weakness, I am equal to every temptation, competent for 
every duty, equipped for every struggle, the master of every fear. — 
Watkinson. 

The Secret of a Happy Life (135). 

Dr. Schmucker, while walking out one day, met an old man sing- 
ing. 

"Father Miller," Baid the doctor, "why should an old man like 
yourself be so cheerful?" 

"Not all are," remarked the old gentleman. "Well, then, why are 
you?" "Because I belong to the Lord." "And are none others happy 
at your time of life?" "No, not one, my friendly questioner," said he, 
and his form straightened. "Listen to the truth from one who knows. 
And no man of three-score and ten shall be found to deny it. The 
devil has no happy old men!" That is the whole story of the Chris- 
tian's secret of a happy life. — Selected. 

"I Know Whom I Believe (136). "You really don't know what you 
believe." said a sneering voice, summing up theological difficulties in a 
manner that the speaker considered unanswerable. "But I know whom 
I have believed," replied the little woman quietly. — Northfleld Calendar. 

Kept (137). This sense of being safely kept; this tremendous cer- 
tainty that we are immune from harm, is the very best preparation for 
free-handed service. 

"All's Well" (138). 

It is a great experience to be in a mighty storm at sea, when we 
have full confidence in the captain and the vessel. As the ship goes 
plowing resistlessly along through the dark night driven by Its heart 
of fire, and one hears the lookout crying, "All's well," the soul, 
"Into the consciousness of safety thrilled, 
Swells vast to heaven," 
and claims kindred with and triumphs over tho forces of the storm. A 
similar but greater experience is it when a storm comes down upon 
life's sea, and rayless darkness sets in, to know that the Great Captain 
la on board and to hear his voice across tho storm proclaiming that all 
Is well. Then and only then do we know the full meaning of that word. 
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind Is stayed on thee." — 
Borden Parker Bowne. 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



Antidote For Anxiety and Worry (139). 
There is one kind of trouble in the world which God never sends, 
and which never brings a blessing with it. It is the borrowed trouble 
which people get by worrying about tomorrow instead of being content 
to bear the burden of today. Most of the worry in this world is over 
trouble that never comes; and what is more foolish than to brood over 
troubles in anticipation of their coming? More people are killed by 
worry than by work. "Preventive medicine" is the great aim of true 
physicians today, and I present this divine philosophy of life as a safe- 
guard against that neurotic degeneracy which threatens many today. 
Most of us are capable of a great deal of hard work if we do not get 
to worrying about it. Do the task of the day in its day and you will be 
free from the grinding worry of accumulated duty. — A. R. E. Wyant. 

Calm Confidence (140). 
"Can you do it?" a Korean was asked with reference to some church 
work. "We ask sudh questions as 'Can you do it?' about men's work, 
but not about God's work," was the quiet reply. To believe God strong- 
ly, to place the matter for which we pray entirely in his hands and 
trust him with it, brings a sense of comfort and security and rest that 
nothing else on earth can give. And God does not fail such faith as 
that. Sooner or later he honors it. — The C. E. World. 

Allied With God (141). 

W. T. Stead, who perished on the "Titanic," towards the end of 
his life abandoned a lucrative position on the press for conscientious 
reasons. "Can you afford to do this?" a friend asked him. "Well," he 
said, "you see, I have a very wealthy partner." "Who is he?" "God 
Almighty!" was the reply. — The Christian Herald. 



XVI. THE FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 



Blot Out My Transgressions. — Psa. 51:1. 
ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. Alexander Maclaren, in preaching on this text, used the 
following outline: 

L Looking at this triad of petitions, they teach us, first, how David 
thought of his sin; 1, observe the reiteration of the same earnest cry 
in all these clauses. It is not a mere piece of Hebrew parallelism. It 
is much more the earnestness of a soul that cannot be content with 
once asking for the blessings and then passing on, but dwells upon them 
with repeated supplication, not because it thinks that it shall be heard 
for Its much speaking, but because it longs for them so eagerly; 2, 
notice, again, that he speaks of his evil as transgressions and as sin, 
using the plural and then the singular. He regards it first as being 
broken up into a multitude of isolated acts, and then as being all gath- 
ered into one knot, as it were, so that it is one thing. But he does not 
stop there. His sins are not merely a number of deeds, but they have, 
deep down below, a common root from which they all come, a center 
in which they all inhere. And so he says, not only "Blot out my trans- 
gressions," but "Wash me from mine iniquity;" 3, in all the petitions 
we see that the idea of his own single responsibility for the whole 
thing is uppermost in David's mind. It is "my transgression," it is "mine 
iniquity," and it is "my sin;" 4, the three words which the Psalmist 
employs for sin give prominence to different aspects of it. Transgres- 
sion Is not the same as iniquity, and iniquity is not the same as sin. 
The word rendered "transgression" literally means rebellion, a break- 
ing away from, and setting one's self against, lawful authority. That 
translated "iniquity" literally means that which Is twisted, bent. The 
word in the original for "sin" literally means missing a mark, an aim. 

II. Those petitions show us how David thinks of forgiveness; 1, 
the first petition conceives of the Divine dealing with sin as being the 
erasure of a writing, perhaps of an Indictment. Our past is a blurred 
manuscript, full of false things and bad things. We have to spread 
the writing before God and ask him to remove the stained characters 
from the surface that was once fair and unsolled; 2, the second prayer, 
"Wash me thoroughly from mine Iniquity," does not need any explana- 
tion, except that the word expresses the antique way of cleaslng gar- 
ments by treading and beating. David then here uses the familiar 
eymboi or a robe to express the "habit" of the soul, or, as we Bay, the 
character. That robe Is all splashed and stained. He cries to God to 
make It a robe of righteousness and a garment of purity; 3, "Cleanse 
me from my sin." That Is the technical word for the priestly act oi 
declaring ceremonial cleanness. 

III. These petitions likewise show ub whence the Psalmist drawi 
his confidence for such a prayer. His whole hope rests upon God's 
own character as revealed In the endless continuance of his acta of 



84 GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 

love. And for us -who nave the perfect love of God perfectly expressed 
In his Son, that same plea is incalculably strengthened, for we can say, 
"According to thy tender mercies in thy dear Son, blot out my trans- 
gressions." 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Restoration (142). 

Once after Moody had finished preaching, a little boy with hand- 
some face and form was brought to the platform by an officer, who said 
he had found him wandering in the crowd, evidently lost. Mr. Moody 
took the little fellow in his arms, and, standing before the great throng, 
asked the people to look at the lost child. 

"This boy has a father who is no doubt at this moment looking for 
him with anxious heart," said the preacher. "The father is more anx- 
ious to find his boy than his boy is to be found. It is just so with our 
Heavenly Father. He is seeking us today; seeking us with unspeak- 
able solicitude. For long years he has been following you, O sinner! 
He is following you still. He is calling to you today." 

At this instant a man was seen elbowing his way toward the plat- 
form. As he drew near the little boy saw him, and, running over the 
platform, threw himself with a bound into his father's outstretched 
arms. The multitude witnessed the scene with breathless attention, 
and then broke out into a mighty cheer. 

"Thus," cried Mr. Moody, "will God receive you if you will only 
run to him today." — Selected. 

How God Pardons (144). 

Our Commissioner went to the Governor of the State and asked him 
if he wouldn't pardon out five men at the end of six months who stood 
highest on the list for good behavior. The Governor consented, and 
the record was to be kept secret; the men were not to know anything 
about it. The six months rolled away and the prisoners were brought 
up — 1,100 of them — and the President of the commission came up and 
said: "I hold in my hand pardons for five men." Every man held his 
breath, and you could almost hear the throbbing of every man's heart. 
"Pardon for five men," and the Commissioner went on to tell the men 
how they had got these pardons. The first name was called — "Reuben 
Johnson" — and he held out the pardon, but not a man moved. He 
looked all around, expecting to see a man spring to his feet at once; 
but no one moved. The Commissioner turned to the officer and in- 
quired: "Are all the convicts here?" "Yes," was the reply, "Reuben 
Johnson, come forward and get your pardon; you are no longer a 
criminal." Still no one moved. 

The real Reuben Johnson was looking all the time behind him, and 
around him to see where Reuben was. The Chaplain saw him standing 
right in front of the Commissioner, and beckoned to him; but he only 
turned and looked around him, thinking that the Chaplain might mean 
some other Reuben. A second time he beckoned to Reuben and called 
to him, and a second time the man looked around. At last the Chaplain 
said to him: "You are the Reuben." He had been there for nineteen 
years, having been placed there for life, and he could not conceive 



THE FORGIVENESS OF SIN 



85 



it would be for him. At last it began to dawn upon him, and he took 
the pardon from the Commissioner's hand, saw his name attached to it, 
and wept like a child. This is the way that men make out pardons for 
men; but, thank God, we have not to come tonight and say we have 
pardons for only five men — for those who have behaved themselves. 
We have assurance of pardon for every man. — Moody. 

A Crisis and a Process (145). 
As John McNeill puts it: "It is a crisis with a view to a process." 
The crisis comes when you decide to take God's side against sin. That 
takes only a moment, but a whole lifetime will be required for the 
process of growth in all the Christian graces. Do not try to become 
a Christian by any process; do that by an act of the will, accepting 
Christ as your Saviour, and take God's side against sin. General O. O. 
Howard, while a young soldier at Fort Brook, Tampa, Fla., accepted 
Christ as his Saviour and took God's side against sin. I heard General 
Howard say to three thousand soldiers at Tampa: "Boys, forty-one 
years ago, two miles from this tabernacle, I surrendered to the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and he has been my Commander ever since. I want to 
tell you that he is the best General that ever led an army." 

"Though Your Sins Be As Scarlet" (146). 
A felon in the city jail was awaiting the hour of his execution. His 
crime was almost without parallel. He had murdered the mother of 
his own nine children. The lower court of justice had condemned him 
to die; the Supreme Court had confirmed the sentence, and fixed tUo 
date of execution. I had preached to him and prayed with him for 
several months. He heard with close, respectful hut undemonstrative 
attention. Dr. Gross Alexander went, at my request, and preached a 
Bermon of great gospel power and personal tenderness. There were 
live persons present — the two preachers, the man himself, and two 
fellow prisoners. At the close of these services, with no one present 
save Dr. Alexander and myself, the prisoner said: "Gentlemen, I want 
a last word with you. I would give a thousand worlds to undo what I 
have done. Yes, I would give my own life ten times over to recall the 
deed, but I cannot. I went into my cell," pointing to the gloomy place 
behind him, "and, kneeling down, told God all about it, and asked him 
to forgive me. And he did. I am not afraid to die now. Gentlemen, 
look into my eyes and see if I look like a man who is afraid to die. 
Now will you please send a message for me to my daughters? Write 

to , the oldost, who has charge of my little daughters. Tell her 

that she is the only motlu-r whom the little ones have now, and that 
■he must tell them never to do anything that God would not have thnni 
do." The message to the others was as sweet and tender as a re- 
newed father could indite out of a loving heart. He went to his execu- 
tion the next day without a tremor. But my same pious and skeptical 
friend asks again: "Do you think he was saved?" Y»-s. Just as 
surely as was that other penitent felon on Calvary, to whose dying 
prayer Jesus gave answer: "Today Bhalt thou be with mo In paradise." 

Saved From Sin (147). 
There has been devised no plan, God"s mercy has looked to the 



86 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



devising of no plan of saving you in your sins. Do you mark that? I 
say there is no such thing as salvation in sin, but the essence of sal- 
vation is salvation from sin. Nor do I hold out the hope to 
any person here, that today, your salvation can be completed. 
Do you mark that? It may be completed thus far, that you 
may today be delivered from the condemnation of the law. You 
may today be acquitted, justified, through the merits of Jesus Christ, 
and yeu may today have put within you a spirit and principle of eternal 
life. What, then, does salvation mean? Now, let us get the thought 
clearly before us. First of all, it is salvation from sin, from sin, not in 
it. The part of it that is instantaneously attainable is deliverance from 
the penalty of sin and the putting within us a spiritual nature. That is 
instantaneous. I say that justification and regeneration may come in a 
moment, but deliverance from the corruption of our evil nature is not 
instantaneous. — Rev, B. H. Carroll, D. D. 

The Sense of Sin (148). 

In an article, "Can Japan Have a Spiritual Revival?" the Rev. R. E. 
McAlpine says: It almost begins to look as though a spiritual quicken- 
ing of the multitudes can hardly be expected among these people for 
the reason that a sense of sin, in the hearts of most of them, has become 
all but extinct. Buddhism teaches them that sin is not lawlessness 
against God, which earns the wages of death, but a failure to obey blind 
law, resulting in misfortune and suffering; that personal holiness is not 
keeping Christ's commands, but chanting Buddha's name. Thus the 
conscience is benumbed, as with an opiate. 

The sense of sin has reached almost the vanishing point in many 
minds, and to offer them a "Saviour from sin" is almost like speaking to 
them in an unknown tongue. Hence the difficulty of a wide and general 
movement in a spiritual direction. Nevertheless, every time we can 
get the ear of a sincere soul, and the Holy Spirit begins through the 
word, "to convict of sin, of righteousness and of judgment," the same 
results are seen as in other lands. It becomes apparent then that Japan 
instead of being one of the easiest fields, and one likely soonest to 
yield, is a regular Port Arthur. 

"Forgiveness With Thee" (149). 

At the close of the twelfth century, Henry, son of Henry II, con- 
spired against his father and took refuge in a walled city, to which tha 
king laid siege. In the course of the campaign the son was woundeo 
unto death; and, being overwhelmed with contrition, sent a messenger - 
to his father asking that he might be permitted to see his face. His 
request was refused. Once and again he sent his humble appeal in 
vain. At length a procession passed through the gateway of the city 
under a flag of truce bearing the dying prince upon a stretcher; but ere 
it reached the royal pavilion he had breathed his last. As the bearers 
waited there, they heard from within a strong cry like that of David, 
"O Henry, my son; would God I had died for thee!" The Lord, with 
whom we have to do, makes no such mistakes. He knows the deep 
secrets of the heart; and, where is true penitence, he has sworn by him- 
self that he will not reiect it. — Selected. 



XVII. SOUL SHELTER. 

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under 
the shadow of the Almighty. — Psalm 91:1. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. B. H. Carroll, D.D., said: When Alexander the Great led the 
armies of united Greece from Europe over into Asia, the first country 
that he subjugated was Asia Minor, and there were established in time 
certain Greek colonies or cities, which preserved the Greek civilization 
for many hundreds of years. The principal of these were Ephesus, 
Smyrna, Thyatira, Pergamos, Sardis, Laodicea and Philadelphia, and 
the last of these was Philadelphia. I mean to say that it was the small- 
est of the cities. It was remote from the sea. It was up in the moun- 
tains. It had not the large commerce of the other places. And yet con- 
cerning this city of Philadelphia and its faith the great historians of the 
world have written much. About the time that our Lord was passing 
from childhood into manhood this city was destroyed by an earthquake. 
It wag a volcanic soil in the mountains, and earthquakes there were very 
frequent. Volcanic soil generally is good for vine growing, and the coins 
of that city generally had on them on one side either Bacchus, the god 
of wine, or a bacchant, one worshiping Bacchus. 

In that most marvelous book, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire," by the infidel Gibbon, is a very marvelous tribute to the pro- 
phecies in John's book of Revelation concerning these seven cities of 
Asia. Gibbon says that when Ephesus fell the church lost its first 
golden candelstick, as prophesied by John, and Laodicea followed, and 
today the remains of its circus and its three theaters cannot be traced. 
As to Pergamos and Thyatira, they speedily fell before the Saracen 
rising in the sixth century under Mahomet, and the mosque succeeded 
the church of Jesus Christ. Smyrna, while still extant, is supported by 
foreign population and trade. Gibbon says: "Philadelphia alone wai 
saved, either by prophecy or by its own courage." 

* * * 

The following treatment of this theme was used by an able hom- 
liist: 

We are secured against the Borrowr of life by the consolations and 
hopes of the gospel. The dark paths of life are full of dread possibili- 
ties. The pessimist is satisfied that, if the condition of the race had 
been Just a little worse, and life had been a trifle more terrible, it would 
have been impossible for it to have been at all. Reason often with dif- 
ficulty keeps her seat. Ghastly disease, speechless anguish, the strokes 
of misfortune, death's divorces, and a thousand nameless stings and 
sorrows are well calculated to extinguish our Joy and pride. Travelers 
tell of that awful morgue on the summit of the St. Bernard, all of whose 
ghastly tenantB perished In the same way — the victims of the storm- 
fiend. But, If such a thought Is lawful, what would be th« overwhelming 
spectacle of a morgue presenting at a glance the sad faceB, the blasted 
lives, the broken hearts, of even a single generation; countless man. 



88 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



women and children, victims of the avalanche, the hurricane, the night, 
and frost, which constitute the tragedy of human life. 

II. The poignancy and magnitude of human suffering can he neither 
denied nor ignored; to be dealt with effectually it must be transcended. 
This the faith of Christ accomplishes. By consoling and fortifying the 
soul in the highest degree does the faith of Christ render us invincible 
in the days of darkness. Against mighty sorrows and dread possibilities 
it sets the strong consolations and glorious hopes of the gospel of re- 
demption, sanctiflcation, and immortality. Just as we get and keep firm 
hold of these doctrines do we bear our sorrows with dignity, tranquillity, 
and the air of a conqueror. A figure full of majesty and grace dawns 
upon the morgue that the pessimist depicts, converting it into a house 
of mercy, a hospital of healing, a chamber of peace, a gate of heaven. 
Only God can sustain, but he can. 

* * * 

Another unfolded it as follows: I. The Christian in a World ot 
Care. Few problems are more familiar in our homes than those which 
have to do with temporal anxieties. These are a part of the divine dis- 
cipline of character. We live in a world of care. Whoever we may be 
or whatever our beliefs, there are three necessities no one of us may 
ignore; the need for food, for clothing, for^shelter. Lift these burdens 
and thousands of hearts would be lightened. Multitudes live but a day 
from need. Sudden misfortune would threaten most of us. Care is the 
lurking shadow in the morrow's thought. We forget that this world is 
our Father's world and that we are in a Father's care. 

II. The Cause of Care. Care is essentially distrust of God, and 
therefore a spiritual problem. It arises from the division of our alle- 
giance between God and Mammon, or from the mistaken view of life 
which counts its value by the things possessed. It cannot be cured by 
the removal of the material need. That may relieve the care but cannot 
cure its cause. Religion's problem is the cure of anxiety. 

III. The Cure of Care is Trust. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Secure in the Midst of Insecurity (150). 

A flood; a pestilence; an earthquake, can turn affluence into desti- 
tution, competence into penury — all in a moment. When De Lesseps' 
steam shovels threw out the last clods of earth from the Suez Canal 
trench one thousand millions of dollars invested in warehouses, docks 
and general equipment by the English merchants engaged in the East 
India trade, was wiped out, and their equipment all consigned to the 
scrap heap. Last week the papers gave a picture of Pierpont Morgan 
and Porfirio Diaz, standing side by side, in Rome — old men in the eigh- 
ties; their life-flames almost ready to flicker out — that of the former, 
since the first part of this sentence was written, has flickered out. And 
yet one of them was but recently the world's money-lord, and the other 
an all-powerful dictator with the lives of millions in his hands. "For we 
are all as grass." 

"Change and decay in all around I see, 
Oh, Thou that changest not, abide with me." 



SOUL SHELTER 



89 



Dwelling In God; Abiding In Safety (151). 

The transiency of the material needs no emphasis. "Change and 
decay in all around I §ee." We have only to return to the home of ouf 
childhood and look upon the broken circle of our friends; nay, to revisit 
a place after an absence of ten years gives us a startling revelation of 
the silent ravages of destructive time. It is certainly not in the material 
• ealm that we find the real and the permanent. Where shall we look 
for the real? Not again in human disposition. Even the noblest strains 
are fickle and broken. The songster is the victim of caprice, and has 
his silent moods. Discords afflict the harmony; sometimes the noblest 
music is like jangled bells, "out of tune and harsh." Where, then, shall 
we look for it? In "the love of God." There is nothing transitory about 
it, nothing fickle, nothing capricious, nothing shadowy, nothing unreal. 
God's love abides, the permanent background in the moving play. We 
cannot awake and find it absent; and while we sleep it never steals 
away. It is the most real thing in the universe. It never changes; and 
God loves thee. "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." — J. H. 
Jowett, D.D. 

Kept (152). 

Kept by the Master's care; released from the strain of nagging 
worry, life will find abundant leisure for cultivating spiritual beauty. 
The atmosphere of trust provides genial sunshine in which love and joy 
and peace and all the noblest graces of the heart-like flourish. 

Some time ago I spent an hour in a great conservatory when the air 
without was bleak and raw. In the soft, balmy atmosphere of that shel- 
ter, roses, chrysanthemums, carnations and their kind were blooming, 
glorious in coloring and shedding sweet perfumes. It was like a vision 
of Paradise as one came to it from the out-of-doors bleakness. And that 
bower of beauty was such simply because it was kept in the warmth and 
sunshine. 

Our hurried, harried, troubled lives lose all possibility of beauty 
because we forget to live in the consciousness of Christ's love. 

The Inner Circle (153). 
It was only a little flock that truly belonged to Christ during the 
days of his incarnate ministry. Sometimes there were crowds that 
preised upon him — multitudes who followed in his train to hear his 
wonderful words and see his amazing works; but those who had truly 
accepted him as their Lord and Master were only a small company. 
With what pathetic tenderness did he comfort and inspire them when he 
said to them, "Fear not, little flock, for It Is your Father's good pleasure 
to give you the kingdom." Often since then in the shifting tides of the 
history of the Church of Christ there have been times when the number 
of the true children of the Kingdom has been small Indeed. Have we 
not fallen upon such a day? Whatever may be said of great religious 
movements of this period and of the numbers of those who are some- 
times found In the train of our divine Lord, yet how few are those to 
whom the Christ life Is the supreme purpose and joy of living. Such 
are mainly found In little Inner circles of the Church made up of those 
to whom holy living Is more than all the world beside. The multitudes 
are taken ud with, and devoted to. the absorbing and exciting and ap- 



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pealing things of modern life with which the world is now ahlaze. May 
the hour not be at hand when the true children of the Kingdom must be 
content to be a small body separate from the world? Has not the great 
outer court of the Church again become thronged with those who are 
intent alone on the joys and gains and triumphs of worldly life? — North- 
ern Christian Advocate. 

Cures Sickness and Sin (154). 

Some years ago a lady went to consult a famous physician. She 
was a woman of nervous temperament, whose troubles had worried and 
excited her to such a pitch that the strain threatened her physical 
strength and even her reason. She gave the doctor her symptoms, only 
to be astonished at this brief prescription: "Madame, what you need ia 
te read your Bible more." 

"Go home and read your Bible an hour a day," the great man reit- 
erated, with kindly authority. "Then come back to me a month from 
today." And he bowed her out without a possibility of further protest. 

At first his patient was inclined to be angry. Then she reflected 
that, at least, the prescription was not an expensive one. Besides, it 
eertainly had been a long time since she had read the Bible regularly. 
Worldly cares had crowded out prayer and Bible study for years, and 
though she would have resented being called an irreligious woman, she 
had undoubtedly become a most careless Christian. She went home and 
set herself conscientiously to try the physician's remedy. 

In one month she went back to his office. 

"Well," he said, smiling as he looked at her face, "I see you are an 
obedient patient, and have taken my prescription faithfully. Do you 
feel as if you needed any other medicine now?" 

"No, doctor, I don't," she said honestly. "I feel like a different per- 
son. But how did you know that was just what I needed?" 

For answer, the famous physician turned to his desk. There worn 
and marked, lay an open Bible. 

"Madame," he said with deep earnestness, "if I were to omit my 
daily reading of this book, I should lose my greatest source of strength 
and skill. I never go to an operation without reading my Bible. I never 
attend a distressing case without finding help in its pages. Your case 
called not for medicine, but for sources of peace and strength outside 
your own mind, and I showed you my own prescription, and I knew it 
would cure." 

"Yet I confess, doctor," said his patient, "that I came very near not 

taking it." 

"VeTy few are willing to try it, I find," said the physician, smiling 
again. "But there are many, many cases in my practice where it would 
work wonders if they only would take it." 

This is a true story. It will do no one any harm to try. — Selected. 

Absorbed In God, Exempt From Harm (155). 

In ascending the lofty peaks of the Jungfrau and Monte Rosa, the 
guides are said not infrequently to resort to the artifice of endeavoring 
to interest the traveler in the beauty of the lovely flowers growing there, 
with a view to distract his attention from the fearful abysses which the 



SOUL SHELTER 



91 



giddy path overhangs. By a similar device of wisdom and love are the 
saints preserved as they pursue their perilous way. God establishes 
their steps by charming their eye with things of beauty, interest, and 
delectableness, and by filling their heart with the love of them. Home, 
with its pleasantness and pathos; the charm of literature, the miracles 
of science, the spell of music, the visions of art; the daily round, with 
its ever fresh solicitudes and satisfactions; the calls of patriotism, the 
demands of duty, the glow of love, the pleasures of friendship, social 
service, the abandon of pastimes — these, and many other similar things 
pertaining to the natural life, when accepted, exercised, and enjoyed in 
the sunshine of the Lord, constitute our strength and guarantee our 
peace, despite all the visions of sin, all the allurements of world, flesh, 
and devil. We are not saved by some unknown magic, but God draws 
our heart to himself through the sanctified gifts, situations, and activi- 
ties which go to the making up of human life. Here is our impregnable 
defense. These are the guardian angels which bear us hp in their 
hands, lest at any time we dash our foot against a stone; these the 
shining squadrons of our salvation. Absorbed by the chaste and lovely 
things of legitimate life, we become oblivious of the yawning depths, 
and are then most secure when most oblivious. — Watchman. 

"Dwelling" Is Not Inactivity (156). 
I have heard soldiers say that in a battle the hardest thing is not 
the final rush. In that wild moment a man forgets himself and is caught 
into a mad tumult of enthusiasm. The hardest thing is to stand quiet 
and wait, while the hail of the enemy's fire is whistling round — to wait 
in the darkness and in the face of death and be forbidden to return the 
fire. It is that which tries the nerves and tests the heart. It is that 
which shows the stuff that men are made of. In such an hour a man is 
not asleep— he is intensely and tremendously alive. And I mention that, 
to show how the word "waiting" does not describe a dull or sluggish 
state, but 1b compatible with ardent feelings, and with a spirit that is 
burning at its brightest. — George H. Morrison. 

The Results of Abiding. 
In the storms of life the heroic in man's character Is developed. 
The storms and conflicts of life afford discipline. Men are brought 
closer together in the fellowship of suffering. Men come to know God 
in the storm, who never would have known him without it. Storm- 
winds sometimes beat into port. There is a story of a storm-beaten 
island, that was well nigh uninhabited and desolate because It had no 
harbor. A great tidal wave came sweeping over it one day, accompanied 
by an earthquake that tore a great gash In its coast, and the waters 
niBhed In and filled the rent, and when the storm had subsided there 
was a beautiful, quiet, sun-kissed bay. The storm had given a harbor. 
Thus through a great sorrow, does God sometimes open a life for his 
own entrance. — The Congregationalism 



XVIII. THE GRATEFUL HEART. 



"Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy 
name." — Psalm 103:1. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
Rev. Frederick F. Shannon in preaching on this theme, said, in 
part: The Bible is like a melodious steeple set with thanksgiving 
chimes. The variations of the tune are many, the spirit, the tune itself, 
is one. Harken to the music of these scriptural bells! They ring out 
gloriously and they ring out unceasingly as well. To whom shall our 
thanksgiving be offered? Unto God, our heavenly Father. Through 
whom shall it be made? Why, through our Lord Jesus Christ. What are 
the reasons for thanksgiving? Well, all our gifts are from God — our tem- 
poral benefits, our daily providences, our unfailing guidance, our immor- 
tal hopes. What are some of the forms of expressing gratitude to the 
Giver of every good and perfect gift? Worship, prayer, offerings and 
praises. These are just a few of the thanksgiving chimes that ring in 
the Bible tower. 

L This American country of ours should make every heart throb 
with gratitude to Almighty God. Think of its natural resources! Think 
of its boundless plains! Its fertile valleys! 

II. A second thing for which right-thinking people are thankful ia 
the Church of the living God, which an apostle describes as the pillar 
and ground of the truth. It is well, now and then, to go back to funda- 
mental things, to discover what are the foundations of ultimate reality. 
In his masterful work on "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century," 
the author leads us back, century by century, to Plato and beyond. But 
the Church of God goes back beyond Plato. 

III. The thankful heart includes, also, among its "all things," grati- 
tude for the unhonored and unsung. Have you thought worthily of the 
quietly good and nobly great, of whom the noisy world takes little ac- 
count? And have you thought of how much we depend upon these for 
the comforts, conveniences, and, indeed, the essentials of life in this 
world? There is the shoemaker. You never see his face on the bill- 
boards, but we could scarcely get along without the shoemaker. There 
ia the newsboy. We accept his presence in city and town and village 
as a matter of fact. But how tame and dull life would be without him 
and his service! And what stories of heroism are constantly coming 
from the unostentatious world. 

IV. Look about you, then, and within you, and beneath you, and 
above you, and you will be sure to find many things which will fit In 
with the liturgy of the thankful heart. Let us be thankful for the with- 
held, the unexplained, the unachieved. I saw a strong man kissing the 
cheek of his dead old father, venerable with years and wealthy with 
Invisible gold. Turning away, the son said, "I wonder if father Is not 
already young again, and If he has not lost even the memory of his 
terrible pain." Give your hearts to God, then, and he will take your 
hard questions, give you joy for sorrow, peaco for pain, hope for despair. 



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and love that knowg no measure. For all things are for your sakes — all 
true teachers, whether Paul, or Apollo, or Cephas; all wondrous school 
rooms, whether the world, or life, or death; all hopes and all experiences, 
whether things present, or things to come; all are yours, if you are 
Christ's, because Christ is God's and nothing shall be able to separate 
you from his love. Ring out your happy bells of gratitude, ring them 
clear across the world, ring them until their golden tones are heard in 
Heaven, and so may you cause this and all thanksgivings to abound unto 
the glory of God! 

* * * 

We do not understand that we are to give thanks for evil in itself, 
but we may offer praise for the overruling of it for good. Again, many 
things that we regard as misfortunes are blessings. Trials and crosses are 
often among the greatest blessings in disguise, for it is only through 
such disciplinary processes that the character is perfected. When we 
consider that the disagreeable is indispensable enrichment and strength- 
ening of character, we see that we should offer thanks for this phase of 
experience, as well as for the agreeable. What a change would be 
wrought in our lives if we thus acted! 

George Matheson, the well-known blind preacher of Scotland, who 
recently went to be with the Lord, says: "My God, I have never thanked 
Thee for my 'thorn.' I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my 
roses, but never once for my 'thorn,' I have been looking forward to a 
world where I shall get compensation for my cross, but I have never 
thought of my cross as itself a present glory. Teach me the glory of 
my cross ; teach me the value of my 'thorn.' Show me that I have climbed 
to thee by the path of pain. Show me that my tears have made my 
rainbow." — Pittsburg Christian Advocate. 

ILLUSTRATIVE TRUTHS AND INCIDENTS. 
God the Fountain Source (157). 
We ought to cultivate the habit of thanking God for everytVng, and 
in order to do this we ought to live by a philosophy of God's government 
which would enable us to conceive of him as the constant fountain of 
life and joy and strength. There is a school of Moslem thought, as Dr. 
Duncan Black Macdonald says in his "Aspects of Islam," "which regards 
the world and all the events in the world as a perpetual miracle — a 
miracle always and constantly going on. It is not only that, by a cre- 
ative miracle, the world was brought into existence; it is not only that, 
by an overseeing Providence, the world is maintained in existence; but 
all through the existence of the world — from moment to moment — there 
is this miraculous creation going on. What happens, from this point of 
view, when, for example, I lift this book? It is quite a complicated 
thing that happens, an involved process. There are a great many crea- 
tions by Allah during that process. First of all, the book is lying there. 
From moment to moment as it lies it is being created, or, at least, re- 
tained In existence by the direct, personal working of Allah. When I 
lift it, as I do now, what happens? He has created in me the movement 
of my hand, and he has created in the book — you cannot say a move- 
ment, but rather, a series of books, as it goes up on its way until it lands 



THE GRATEFUL HEART 



95 



here. You see, we have In this scheme not only an atomic system of 
matter; we have also, and this is the most curious device of the Moslem 
metaphysicians, an atomic system for time." 

This is error. God's method is not such a mechanical and arbitrary 
method as this. He is in the world aa well as above the world. But 
we are poor Christians if we allow Mohammedan orthodoxy or Moham- 
medan heresy- to give men a more vivid sense of their dependence upon 
God than we have. And if we are absolutely and actually and always 
dependent upon God, we ought to be unceasingly grateful to him for all 
his goodness and our gratitude ought to be spoken. "Bless the Lord, 
O my soul, and forget not all his benefits." — J. R. Miller, D. D. 

The Memory of the Heart (158). 

At an exhibition of deaf mutes in the New York Institution for the 
Deaf and Dumb, the high class were asked to define "gratitude." One 
of the pupils, a beautiful girl, wrote on the slate, "Gratitude is the mem- 
ory of the heart." Yet how many have the remembrance of the blessing 
without the feeling of gratitude for it? 

Fresh Every Morning (159). 

Gratitude is taught only in that school of faith which declares that 
God is so good and bo great that be starts every day along its own new 
path bringing to us new material blessings, letting us look into new 
faces, revealing to us new phases of truth, opening up to us new regions 
of character, and putting before us new opportunities for work. Under 
this view of the divine care even the Book of Lamentations ceases its 
wailing and says of the Lord's mercies, "They are new every morning." 
Instead of monotony we see variety; instead of occasional benefit the 
constancy of mercy; instead of heartless machinery, the hand of the lov- 
ing God. — Bishop Edwin Holt Hughes. 

Gratitude to Helpful Friend (160). Dickens never forgot how old 
John Black, the publisher, was the first to help him in the world of let- 
ters. "It was John Black that flung the slipper after me," he would say. 
"Dear old Black, my first hearty out-and-out appreciator." 

Gratitude a Stimulus (161). 

Sincere thankfulness Is declared to be a magnificent stimulant. The 
apostle Paul warns bis readers against turning to material slimulants 
in conditions of depression and gloom. I think he is not referring merely 
to mental and moral weariness, but also to physical tiredness and ex- 
haustion. He advises people who are spent In body, mind or soul to 
turn to the ministries of the spirit, and particularly he mentions "giving 
thanks always for all things." It is & counsel which is much Ignored. 
If thankfulness exhilarates the soul, what about all the murmuring and 
complaining In which our common life abounds? Every moody com- 
plaint adds to the burden we carry; every word of thanks lightens our 
dally load. There Is no exhllarant like praise, and thankful people al- 
ways carry a shining face. 

Thankfulness Is also declared to be a magnificent preservative of 
the sacredness of our possessions. There is a certain stimulus In striv- 
ing for a thing; there la a certain hopeful aspiration after 
things we have not yet found. But a thing hoped for can act like a 



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drug once we possess it. It may dull the very senses that were wide 
awake to possess it. When we acquire a thing our spiritual perceptions 
may go to sleep, and we may lose the Sense of its sacred value. There 
is no awe upon its possession. It becomes common and commonplace. 
Now thankfulness retains a sense of the sacredness of things. The 
commonplace wears a nimbus. There is a halo upon the ordinary. A 
mystic fire burns in the wayside bush. God is seen in the lowly shrine. 
The common meal becomes a sacrament. To say "thank you," and 
mean it, keeps the soul awake to the divine. — Selected. 

"I'm Thankful For You" (162). 

This was the sweet, consoling word that came to a woman strug- 
gling with fresh bereavement at the Thanksgiving season. Instantly a 
well of thankfulness was unsealed in her own heart. All was not over, 
then! There was still something left to live for. Someone yet leaned 
on her. Someone turned to her for help and strength and comfort. It 
set a whole nest of singing birds caroling in the very ruins of her own 
happiness. 

Does not this give us a hint how to comfort the sorrowful? "I don't 
want to be 'poor-deared' ! " cried one whose best-beloved had been taken. 
"All I want on earth is just once more to hear him say, 'I need you.' " 
That comfort, alas! was nevermore to be hers, but time showed her 
a helpless worldful of people always saying it. It is the true soul-tonic. 
The solace of helping others is within the reach of every sufferer. 
Added to that is sometimes vouchsafed the reward hinted at in the begin- 
ning of this paragraph. Now and then someone will feel a warm throb 
of thankfulness toward us, and say so. It pays a thousand times for 
the little we are able to do out of our weakness. Nobody wants to have 
anybody thankful to him, but it is a high form of happiness to know that 
someone is thankful for us. — Congregationalist. 

Gifts Overlooked (163). 

The goodness of God recognized by us is by far the least part it, 
Dr. Watkinson reminds us. There is the goodness that we overlook. 
God's gifts are multiplied like the dew-drops or the snowflakes, and, 
gliding into life just as silently, are easily undiscerned by careless eyes 
like ours. One day in the town of Sonora, in the southern mines of 
California, after a very heavy rain and freshet, a man was leading his 
mule-cart up the steep principal street, when his foot struck upon a 
large stone; he stooped down to remove it, and found it was a solid 
lump of gold, about twenty-five pounds weight, which had been exposed 
by the storm, and many hundreds of people has passed over it daily. 
So do we daily blindly trample on blessings richer than all the wealth 
of California. And there is the goodness we misconstrue. We count 
sublime things commonplace, and reckon as losses and disappointments 
the discipline which brings incorruptible treasure. The "benefits" of 
God are not the pleasant things merely but the things of pain and tears. 
— Selected. 

God the Giver (164). 
A boy was bringing home a loaf of bread, and one said, "What have 
you there?" "A loaf." "Where did you get it?" "From the baker." 



THE GRATEFUL HEART 



97 



"Where did the baker get It?" "He made it." "Of what did he make it?" 
"Flour.' ! "Where did he get the flour?" "From the miller." "Where 
did he get it?" "From the farmer." "Where did the farmer get it?" 
Then the truth dawned upon the boy's mind, and he replied, "From 
God." "Well, then, from whom did you get the loaf?" "O, from God." 
Here is a boy who, in the last resort, acknowledges God to be the giver 
of good. In this materialistic age, a man says, "My business supports 
me and my family." It is a lie; God supports you and your family. Men 
deal with God only as a last resort, and yet go on hoping to sneak into 
God's heaven when they have done with his world; but the God of Sinai 
is thundering out to this age, "Thou shalt put me first and the baker 
becond." We may not sacrifice to the net, nor may we burn incense to 
the drag. 

"Benefits" Itemized (165). 

Here is the summary of one saint who had learned to count his 
blessings: "1 thank God for Christian parents whose solicitude and 
prayers have followed me every day of my life, have succored me in the 
hour of temptation and strengthened me for life's responsibilities, and 
have been a constant buoyancy to my soul when the fire has burned low. 

"I thank God for the spark of divinity in my soul that teaches me 
that I was not made for meanness, and constantly urges me upward 
toward God. 

"1 thank God for a spirit of human sympathy which brings me into 
touch with the great throbbing heart of humanity and will not let me I 
live a wholly selfish life. 

"I thank God for good men and women, whose pure lives are a 
perpetual rebuke to my imperfections and make me believe in a possl- 
Mlity of my achieving personal goodness. 

"I thank God for the great Friend whose abiding presence grows 
ever sweeter to me, and who forgives my sins and believes In me when 
others do not and I despair of myself. 

"1 thank God for his Church and for a place in it in which to work 
and for a disposition to work. 

"1 thank God for faith in him and in his Son, the world's Redeemer. 

"1 thank God for faith in men and women, for a disposition to be- 
lieve in their goodness, to be sorry for their faults, to forgive their 
wrongs, and to wish them ever the greatest happiness attainable in this 
life and everlasting bliss and happiness in the world to come. 

"I thank God for enough sorrow to keep my heart tender and to 
make me sympathize with all others who sorrow."— Selected. 

/0 , J The Thankful Heart (166). 

Beecher said: "The unthankful heart, like my finger in the sand, 
discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day, 
and as the magnet finds the iron, so will it find in every hour some 4- 
heavenly blessings; only the iron In God's sand is gold." And Dr. Hall . 
wrote: "Learn the lesson of thanksgiving. It Is due to God, it is due 
to ourselves. Thanksgiving for the past makes us trustful In the pres- 
ent and hopeful for the future. What ho has done is the pledge of what 
he will do." 



XIX. THE MEANING OF DISASTER. 

"Again they are mlnished and brought low through oppression, afflic- 
tion and sorrow." — Psalm 107:39. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

I. Dire disaster is not to be interpreted, locally, in terms of Divine 
displeasure. 

Ever since the Flood and Sodom men have been Inclined to look 
upon other people's calamities as dispensations of judgment, specific 
penalties meted out to them because they were sinners above others. 
Christ's very definite and very stinging rebuke should have been suffi- 
cient to have placed a final quietus upon all this holier-than-thou spirit. 
No doubt, if you considered the flagrant wickedness of their slums and 
the worldliness of their nominal Christians, the special communities 
more particularly visited by signal calamities have been evil enough. 
And no doubt, If you measure their sinning over against God's long 
suffering mercy, they deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth. 
But then, what city, village, crossroads, does not deserve that fate? 
Comparatively speaking, the desert of all Is the same. And it is pre- 
sumptuous self-righteousness for any man. In the case of any particular 
calamity, to Interpret it as a special evidence of God's wrath called 
forth by the special locality, or individual, concerned. Let God do that. 

II. Nor Is dire disaster to be thought of, for a moment, as the 
slightest reflection upon the goodness of God. 

There is, undoubtedly, a margin of tho absolutely unpreventable. 
There are possibilities of calamity wholly beyond human control. Man 
cannot master the cyclone — although, even here, so simple a device as 
the cyclone cellar haB often reduced the loss of life resulting to the 
minimum. 

But, after all, we cannot evade the fact that a very large proportion 
of the worst results of the world's historic disasters were preventable. 
Cleveland lost several millions of dollars through the recent flood largely 
because it had failed to straighten out the windings of the Cuyahoga 
River through Its "flats," and deepen its channel by dredging. This 
will now be done at once. It Is asserted by the Mayor of Dayton that 
the deep dredging of the Miami River which he has been urging upon 
the city council, would have averted much of the loss. 

Many Ohio River cities deliberately Invito property destruction by 
rearing warehouses and business blocks, as well as homes, below what 
is definitely known to be hlghwater mark. Since Philadelphia has 
stopped drinking unflltered, bacilli-laden Schuylkill water typhoid epi- 
demics are unknown there. The dwellers on the vlneclad slopes of Mt. 
Vesuvius flock back to their death-lnvltlng terraces before the lava of 
the last eruption has cooled. The Japanese committee of experts, sent 
to investigate the San Francisco earthquake, reported by Dr. Nakamura, 
Professor of Architecture at Tokyo University, that "dishonest mortar — 
a corrupt conglomeration of sea-Band and lime — was responsible for 
nearly all of the earthquake damage In San Francisco." It 1b not fair 



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to blame God for our own disregard of danger; or because we are will- 
ing to take the chances which are linked up with certain localities and 
natural conditions. It is not piety, but something very different, to 
charge up the results flowing from our disregard of preventative precau- 
tions, to mysterious providential dispensations. 

To let disaster disturb faith, or lead us to impugn God's goodness, 
is not merely sinful but silly. 

III. There is sunshine behind the clouds. One touch of nature, in 
the form of sympathy-arousing disaster, sweeps away, in a moment, all 
the barriers of conventionality and everyday mutual indifferences to 
others' weal or woe. 

The whole country has responded, in fervent sympathy, and prompt- 
ly volunteered assistance, and lavish giving, to the pitiful calls of need. 
Rich and poor have joined in generous donations to the relief funds 
being gathered. The names of Cleveland's millionaires and its too 
often despised, ditch-digging dagoes, stood side by side in the published 
lists of eager contributors to the fund. "We be brethren" — even if we 
do sometimes forget the fact. 

IV. There's one more reflection from which we cannot get away, 
if we would: — the mutability of all these earthly things which, when 
the sun shines, seem so transcendently important and immovably perma- 
nent, and so secure. — Tremont. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

The Wreck of the Titanic (167). 

Surrounded by the familiar sights and sounds of the cities we have 
built, within the cheery hail of our fellows at every turn, we are tempted 
to believe that independence and good fortune make us an exception 
to reverses. But when men slide down into those giant and slippery 
arms which can with ease embrace and crush the populations and the 
dwelling places of this planet, then frail humans realize how insignificant 
and abject is their presence here. We can tunnel the mountains, dive^ . 
the rivers, drain the marshes and rear on the shores stalwart towers 
and graceful pinnacles. Such deeds are native to our habit as the 
creatures of the land. But men have never left a mark on the elusive 
element of the ocean where they are but fleeting specks. The elastic 
pavements seduce us to evade us. Their levels are entirely governed by 
their own tides and motions. Their restless surfaces are in a constant 
flux and what is, again is not; and what is not, suddenly appears. The 
tranquil calm of their unmeasured resources bears no fear of man and 
owes him no allegiance. He sails in warm belts of tropical exuberance, 
where every ripple whispers peace. He forces a hazardous entrance 
through the frozen barriers of those ghostly palaces of unbroken winter 
whose fatal bergs float out and lie in dark and deadly silence on his 
chartered route. He quivers before the storm fiend's anarchies, whose 
hell of turbulence howls and hisses in endless torture and curls its 
liquid jaws around the doomed. He finds in these wide diversities the 
full epitome of nature's sweetest and most grand and awful moods. 
They baffle him — here so enticing, there so imperious, from the caress 
of the crystal wavelet on a golden strand to the caverns of leaping chaos 



THE MEANING OF DISASTER 



101 



whose thunders announce eternity. Surely God alone is great, and the 
symphony of that greatness is heard nowhere on earth save in the music 
of the sea. — Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, D.D. 

The Ohio and Indiana Floods of 1913 (168). 

Where was God while all this was happening? What was he doing? 
How was he feeling? Who, at such times, can repress such questions 
as these? What a terrible world it is in which such things are allowed 
to happen! What awful unsuspected dangers lurk in the hiding-places 
of nature! It almost seems as if those very elements on which man has 
relied for sustenance and comfort were capable at any moment of turn- 
ing upon him and rending. Here is water, that great essential of the 
life of man. For even a few drops his parched throat has often panted. 
In some form or other it has brought untold blessings into his life. And 
here is the wind, that has again and again cooled his fevered brow, that 
has wafted his ships freighted with their rich cargoes to the desired 
havens. But suddenly the hitherto beneficent elements descend upon 
him in wrath and ravage him as a lion sports with and mangles its prey. 

But does it make our life in this strange and captious world any 
more endurable to think of these tremendous forces as altogether be- 
yond the control of God? The only thing that keeps men sane in the 
midst of such awful tragedies is the thought of God and of the future 
life. With no power or intelligence higher than ours at work in the 
universe, with no life beyond this to fill out what is often so ruthlessly 
ended here, this world would be indeed a desolate prison-house and the 
struggle to exist would be the mad fight of animals caught in a cage. 
Long ago a man who lived near to God wrote these words, "He maketh 
his wind to blow and the waters flow." The winds and the waters which 
raged so furiously and destructively were not let loose by demons who 
had temporarily usurped the seat of power and authority in this uni- 
verse. 

Hope on, then, fainting hearts. Find the same source of quiet con- 
fidence which the Psalmist discovered. Rest in the witness of our Lord 
Jesus Christ to the goodness and mercy of God. See in the resolute 
spirit with which men are already entering upon the stupendous task 
of recovery and restoration, an evidence that there is something in man 
which defies and rises above catastrophe. See in the quick and univer- 
sal outpouring of sympathy and succor the evidence that stronger than 
any force of nature is man's love for his fellowman. And be sure that 
God is better and wiser than any man and that he never relaxes for a 
single moment his hold upon the world he has made. — The Congrega- 
tionallst. 

Human Responsibility for Many Disasters (169). 

We do not narrow down God's Immanence and providence, we en- 
large their scope and magnify their grandeur, as well as the dignity 
of him whom God placed only a little lower than the angels in crea- 
tion's scale. 

It Is vastly better to bo qualified for doing needful things for onr- 
selves than to be pampered and enfeebled by having them done for us. 
It la not mocking the petitioner, but revealing to him his nobler place, 
to tell him that God commissions him to answer many of his own 
prayers. 



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It is folly to speed an ocean liner on its way -with prayers and then 
run it at the rate of twenty-one knots an hour through an Iceberg in- 
fested sea at night; or to fail to adequately equip it with lifeboats. It 
is the same kind of folly that sought to banish yellow fever germs from 
Cuba by holding sacred processions through the streets when the plague 
threatened, instead of destroying the mosquitoes in the swamps. There 
is no strange providence about a yellow fever epidemic. It is merely 
the natural result of ignorance of or indifference to sanitary precau- 
tions. There was nothing "providential" — In this perverted use of that 
word — in the raging Johnstown flood, it was the direct sequence of a 
reckless defiance of very clearly written natural laws. 

We all disclaim superstition and yet most of us have a streak of it 
lurking somewhere in the nooks and crannies of our brains. And in 
this same way, most of us are tempted to say kismet at some point 
when ordinary regard for divinely fixed conditions would enable us 
easily to Burmount the supposedly insurmountable and conquer circum- 
stances. Let us learn to trust our heavenly Father with all the unques- 
tioningness of little children. 

But let us also learn to utilize the principles and laws of action 
which he has graciously placed at our disposal. And if through negli- 
gence or culpable ignorance, or tempted by another unworthy motive, 
we go contrary to a divinely taught common sense, whatever else we 
do, when human folly has brought down disaster, let us refrain from 
charging the result to God's inscrutable purposes. — Selected. 

God in the Storm (170). 

When mists begin to settle upon us and our surroundings seem un- 
familiar, and we are in danger of losing our way, it is good to get the 
eye fixed upon some familiar object in the landscape that will serve" as 
a landmark. Thus God has given to us certain distinguishing and de- 
termining facts which serve as spiritual landmarks. It is by retaining 
our hold upon these that we keep ourselves in the way. Thus are we 
enabled to live up to the creed, "All that we know of God's goodness 
teaches us to trust him for all that we do not know." Here are some 
of the landmarks: The possibility of evil is the price paid for develop- 
ment. If God governs, it must be by law. If that law is broken, the 
penalty must be paid. But the fault is not in the law. Back of the law, 
the penalty, the storm, the stress, the flood, is God; and God is Love. 
Therefore, in the very midst of the mystery there is always a Friendly 
Presence. God is in the storm and in the flood, not as the author of 
evil, but as the author of the punishment of the evil. The triumph 
of evil is only a seeming triumph. It is one thing to be storm-tossed, 
and an entirely different thing to be lost. If our Pilot Is on board, no 
water can swallow the ship. — United Presbyterian. 

Earth's Gethsemanes (171). 

Wherever we look we face Gethsemane. Who reconciles this prob- 
lem to the belief in a God, both loving and omnipotent? 

Science can give no answer. It finds nature endowed with tooth 
and talon, fang and claws. Says Victor Hugo: "A piece of silk stolen 
from the palace of the Emperor of China, represents a shark eating a 



THE MEANING OF DISASTER 



103 



crocodile, who is eating a serpent, who is devouring an eagle, who is 
preying on a swallow, who in turn is eating a caterpillar. All Nature is 
thus alternately devouring and devoured. The prey, prey upon each 
other." Despairing to solve the problem, he exclaims: "Let us aspire 
to an existence in which these mysteries shall be made clear!" 

Philosophy has argued that the devourers are the sextons of the 
system of nature, and that universal death means universal burial. It 
has grasped the truth that, if the tomb were unknown, love probably 
would never have flourished in a world of selfishness. It is certain that 
the art of appreciation is created by the contrast of light and shadow 
and would be impossible, were it not for the danger of loss. It agrees 
with Dr. Rexford's eloquent plea: "A diadem made of the celestial 
jewels by the combined skill of all the angels in heaven could not com- 
pare with that crown which the human being himself shall create by 
his own heroic and persistent determination to wrest victory from de- 
feat, success from failure — the determination to pluck the truth out of 
its mysterious disguises and at last to think God's thoughts after him." 
But after all has been said, the problem remains. It is night In Geth- 
eemane. — Bard. 

Ways of Explaining Trouble. 

In all ages and climes poets and philosophers have sought out an 
explanation of the problem of human suffering. Why did not God make 
a world without sin? Why need there be any winter and frosts? Why 
should there be cyclones and floods? Why was San Francisco's earth- 
quake necessary? Would not happiness uninterrupted have been bet- 
ter? The old paganism had its answer: There is a God, but from time 
to time, here and there, a storm, a flood or a fire gets out of his hand. 
Then for a little time the world is a runaway orb and trouble goes 
rioting through life, working devastation upon every side. Later, little 
by little, Ormuzd, the God of Good, recovers his strength and Bubdues 
evil. This philosophy explains trouble by the temporary loss of Omni- 
potence. The New Epicureanism presents its plan; there Is much 
trouble In the world, and death will come at last to all, but fortunately 
there is also much good. There are sweet wines, choice foods, soft 
raiment, perfumes, music and luxury; therefore get all you can, keep 
all you can, eat and drink, for tomorrow you die. The world is a treas- 
ure house, and each pilgrim does well to loot and carry away all the 
treasure he can stagger under. The New Stoicism goes to the other 
extreme; suffering Is a misery; troubles are universal; no wall can be 
built to keep out the rising flood of disaster. Therefore, shut your 
teeth, clinch your fist, harden your heart, and let trouble do Its worst. 
But this Is a poor philosophy. The tiled roof Is not disturbed by rain or 
the slate by snow, nor is the thick tortoise troubled by the pelting 
storm, but that which Is good In a tortoise Is bad in a man. Life means 
sensitiveness. The petrified feeling means the dead heart. The agnostic 
becomes at once cynical and bitter. The storms crush man, the cold 
chlllB him, the acids eat, the steam scalds, the famines waste his 
strength, the swamps exhale a poison deadlier than that of the BorglaB, 
■oon or late disease will slay every Individual. No one can escape, 
therefore, accept the Inevitable. Last of all comes the philosophy of 



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Jesus, as interpreted by Paul. God loves, but whom he loves he chastens. 
With smiles Paul says: "My light afflictions, which are but for the mo- 
ment — blows, scourges, stones, mobs, dungeon, poison, a day and a night 
in the sea, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils among false 
brethren, hunger, cold, nakedness": mere trifles these, Paul thinks — 
these work out a far more "exceeding and eternal weight of glory." As 
a loving Father, God decided to introduce trouble and suffering into the 
world as a method of making manhood. He uses the night with the 
day, winter with summer, storm with sunshine, struggle with serenity, 
poverty and abundance, sorrow and joy, tears and smiles, but all these 
things are to be so used as to work together for good for those who love 
God. And nothing shall be able to separate man from this love of God 
manifested in Christ. Therefore, Paul wore scars and gashes as in- 
signia of royalty and exulted in his tribulations, rising against opposing 
troubles as birds rise and are lifted by the very wind they breast. — 
Newell Dwight Hillis, D.D. 



XX. OUR OMNIPOTENT HELPER. 



"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. 
My help cometh from the Lord, etc." — Psalm 121. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Phillips Brooks, in unfolding the riches of these verses, handled the 
passage in the following way: 

In these words of the Psalmist the nobleness which we immediately 
feel seems to lie in this, that David will seek help only from the highest 
source. Nothing less than God's help can really meet his needs. He 
will not peer into the valleys, he will not turn to fellowmen, to nature, 
to work, to pleasure, as if they had the relief he needed. "I will lift up 
mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh 
from the Lord, who hath made heaven and earth." It is the duty of every 
man to seek help from the Highest in every department of his life. 

I. Take, first, the everlasting struggle with temptation. How per- 
fectly clear it is that any man who undertakes that struggle may look 
either to the valleys or to the hills for help, may call the lower or the 
higher powers to his aid. The fear of pain, the fear of disgrace, the fear 
of discomfort, and the shame that comes with the loftiest companionship 
— we may have to appeal to them all in the hours, which come so often 
in our lives, when we are very weak. But, after all, the appeal to these 
helpers Is not the final cry of the soul. Obedience to God is the only 
final and infallible help of the soul in its struggle with temptation. 

II. Not merely in temptation, but in sorrow, a man may seek the 
assistance of the Highest or of some other power which is far lower. 
The real relief, the only final comfort, is God; and he relieves the soul 
always in its suffering, not from its suffering; nay, he relieves the soul 
by its suffering, by the new knowledge and possession of himself which 
would come only through that atmosphere of pain. 

III. Our truth is nowhere more true than in the region of doubt 
and perplexity of mind. 

IV. The text is true with reference to man's escape from sin. The 
best spiritual ambition seeks directly holiness. It seeks pardon as a 
means to holiness. So it lifts its eyes up at once to the very highest 
hills. 

♦ * * 

Rev. George Barton divides this text as follows: 

1. The soul is often placed in circumstances of distress. 2. In time 
of distress Jehovah is an ever available refuge; a, his power Is unbounded; 
b, his defense is invincible; c, his vigilance is unwearied; 3, the most 
signal manifestations of Divine help are realized in the sanctuary. The 
temple stood on those "hills" to which the Psalmist lifted up his eyes; 
4, The soul Is delivered from its distress only as it turns to Jehovah. 

♦ » * 

We £re encouraged to look to God for deliverance from life's cor- 
roding cares. These are of different kinds. Dr. F. B Meyer says: 



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I. There is care about our growth in grace. It is very unreason- 
able; and yet how common! We fret because we fear that we are not 
getting on fast enough, and run to and fro in our anxiety to pick up 
something from other people. As well might a lad in an infant class fret 
because he may not enter the higher classes of the school. But surely 
his one business is to acquire the lessons set before him by the teacher. 
When those are learned, it will be for the teacher to give him other and 
harder ones, and to advance him to positions where quicker progress 
may be made. And it is for us to learn each day the lessons which 
the Lord Jesus sets us, and to leave to him the responsibility of leading 
us forward in the knowledge and love of God. 

II. There is care about our Christian work. How to maintain our 
congregations? How to hold our own amid the competition of neigh- 
boring workers? How to maintain the efficiency and vigor of our ma- 
chinery? * How to adjust differences between our fellow or subordinate 
workers? How to find material enough to supply the incessant demand 
for sermons and addresses? How to shepherd a large flock of souls? 
What elements of care are hidden in each of these! And in what num- 
berless cases the look of weary anxiety betrays the heartache within! 

But one is inclined to ask sometimes, Whose work is it? If it is 
yours, resting on your shoulders only, there may be some reasonable- 
ness in the carrying of care. But if, as is surely the case, the work 
is your Master's, the burden should be his also. The prime worker is 
not you, but Christ. He is working through you. You are but his ser- 
vant. All that you are responsible for is to do what he bids to the 
uttermost of your power; and he must bear all the cost and responsibil- 
ity beside. If things are not going smoothly, go and tell him, and cast 
all the anxiety of it back on him, leaving It to him to extricate or rein- 
force you. 

III. There is care about the ebb and flow of feeling. Our feelings 
are very changeable. They are affected by changes in the weather and 
temperature, by the state of our digestion and liver, by over-weariness, 
by want of sleep, by a thousand nameless causes. No stringed instru- 
ment is more affected by minute changes than we are; and we are apt 
to worry when the tide of emotion is running fast out, defying our 
efforts to retain it. But, if we are not conscious of any sin or negli- 
gence to which this subsidence of emotion may be attributed, we may 
cast the care of such an experience on our Saviour. He knows our 
frame; and, as we pass down the dark staircase, let us hold fast to the 
hand-rail of his will, willing still to do his will, though in the dark. "I 
am as much thine, and devoted to thee, in the depths of my being now, 
as when my heart was happiest in thy love." 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Human Fickleness and Divine Stability (172). 
I remember so well Hudson Taylor coming to my church. He stepped 
on the platform and opened the Bible to give an address, and said, 
"Friends, I will give you the motto of my life," and he turned to Mark 
11:22: "Have faith in God." The margin says: "Have the faith of 
God," but Hudson Taylor said it meant, "Reckon on God's faith to you." 
He continued: "All my life has been so fickle. Sometimes I could trust. 



OUR OMNIPOTENT HELPER 



107 



Bometime8 I could not, but when I could not trust then I reckoned that 
God would be faithful." — F. B. Meyer. 

Lifting Our Eyes to Heaven In Trouble (173). 

In the early days of Britain, when the Christian Cuthbert and his 
companions were driven from the bitter land to sea, and then were 
cast upon a dreary shore by a terrible storm, they cried, "No path is open 
for us; let us perish: we are driven from land to sea and from sea to 
land." And Cuthbert answered, "Have ye so little faith, my comrades?" 
and then lifting his eyes to heaven he prayed, "I thank thee, Lord, that 
the way to heaven is still open." When there i3 no other way to look 
for help, we may look up. — The Classmate. 

Let God Help You (174). Said a good physician quaintly to an 
over-anxious mother as she bent over her sick child, "What makes you 
think you must do it all yourself? Why don't you give Providence a 
chance to help you?" I think he struck upon the root of the trouble. — 
The Young Women of India. 

Forgetting Our Resources (175). 

A little street girl was taken sick one Christmas, and carried to the 
hospital. While there she heard the story of Jesus' coming into the 
world to save us. One day the nurse came around at the usual hour, 
and "Little Broomstick" (that was her street name) held her by the 
hand and whispered, "I am having real good times here, ever such good 
times! S'pose I'll have to go 'way from here just as soon as I get 
well; but I'll take the good time along — some of it, anyhow. Did you 
know about Jesus being born?" 

"Yes," replied the nurse, "I know. But you must not talk any more." 

"You did? I thought you looked as if you didn't, and I was going 
to tell you." 

"Why, how did I look?" asked the nurse, forgetting her orders in 
her curiosity. 

"Oh, Just like most o' folks — kind o' glum. I shouldn't think you'd 
ever look glum if you knowed about Jesus bein' born." — Christian Evan- 
gelist 

Turning Our Faces Toward God (176). 

Where shall we look for hope and help in our hours of gloom and 
days of despair? How shall we confront the supreme and terrible 
moral and spiritual tragedies of the soul? 

What did the saints and heroes do? What did the men and women 
of history do — the men and women we admire? What did Martin Lu- 
ther do? What did Lincoln do? What did Jesus do? Did they surren- 
der to the world's grief and assaults? Did they Beek deliverance in 
flight? Did they sit down among the ruins of their hopes and long to 
escape from their unhappy lota and heavy crosses to some lovely and 
serene asylum of peace? 

Perhaps — for they were human — transient impulses to surrender or 
to escape often visited their perplexed minds. But they did not yield 
to these sirens of the soul. If they had yielded, their lives and deeds 
and words would not inspire us, aB they now do, with the moral passion 



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to face, as they did, the hardest and bitterest situations and experiences, 
and to conquer them and to rise above them into the strength and glory 
of victory and the joy of spiritual achievement. To him that overcom- 
eth the laurel that fadeth not away is promised, and the crown of 
Christ. 

Soon or late the swiftly moving years of life bring most human 
souls face to face with conditions or circumstances — domestic, financial, 
moral, spiritual — when no one can help us but ourselves. We may be 
blessed with wise and kind and sympathetic friends, but in the end no 
one can meet these supreme trials for us. Ultimately, sometime and 
somewhere, the silent but divine necessity confronts us, and we are 
challenged. What shall we do? There is only one thing for the human 
soul to do. It is to rise up and gird on the sword and go forth to 
battle. Any other course is beneath the dignity of man. 

No, as Browning sings, when a man begins the fight with himself, 
and turns his face toward God and tow.ard the light, struggling to over- 
come whatever threatens to crush out his faith and courage of his man- 
hood, then he is worth something to himself, to humanity and to God. — 
Rev. Frank L. Phalen. 

The Changeless Christ (177). For men soon change and quickly fail; 
but Christ remaineth forever and standeth by us firmly to \he end. — 
Thomas a Kempis. 

A Very Present Help (178). 

The Hebrew, Greek and Roman thought conceived of God as a force 
outside of the world. The modern conception of God regards him as the 
indwelling life of his creation. Carlyle's definition of the old theology 
is explicit. "An absent God outside of the world watching it go." This 
was the thought of Dante in his "Divine Comedy." It was the thought 
of Bunyan in his "Pilgrim's Progress." It was the thought of Milton 
in his "Paradise Lost." In all these masterpieces of the human mind 
God is on the outside of the circle of humanity. To Milton, to Dante 
and to Bunyan, God was not love. At the beginning of the nineteenth 
century, men saw a new vision and were guided by it. It was the vision 
their Master saw when hanging upon the cross. These men wrote their 
interpretation of God. They said if God is love, he is in the world and 
in humanity. In the book of Revelation they saw the holy city, the new 
Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. They saw God coming to live 
upon the plains and dwell in the valleys among men. They believed 
that God was to build his city upon the earth and make it the home 
of his children, and that if he has some mansions in heaven he has other 
mansions on the earth. Epicurus was wrong. Plato was mistaken. So 
were the agnostics. The great central truth of the Christian religion 
and of human life is this, God is love. He is not only a creator 
and moral judge, but he is the friend and counselor of humanity, an ever 
present help in time of trouble. 

Humanity seems like a poor pitiful thing beset on every side by 
forces superior and stronger. These things over which we have but little 
control hold us in the hollow of their remorseless hands. Sorrow breaks 
eur hearts. Sin cripples and fetters us. Our paths are full of 



OUR OMNIPOTENT HELPER 



109 



stumbling blocks, yet there is something in man greater than them all. 
Man in the grasp of law, man eating the bread of sorrow, man paying 
the penalty of sin, and yet man, in spite of his pain, weakness and sin, 
cries out to something above, and by that cry he identifies himself with 
God. It is like a child being carried to sea by the outgoing tide reach- 
ing its little hands across the waves back to its father, who is standing 
on the shore, and the father is all love and he puts his love into a pro- 
gramme to save the child. Homer hung ideals like so many stars in 
the sky of the Athenian youth, but not until the young Greek pulled 
those ideals down and put them into the life, thought and institutions 
of his own nation did Greece feel the mighty impulse and inspiration 
of Homer's life. Jesus, on the Mount of Transfiguration, was beautiful, 
but when he came down to the valleys and plains ministering to the 
wants and needs of the people he was more beautiful. And so when 
God comes down from the shining courts above and walks along the 
highways below as man's friend and helper, he becomes our Father in 
fact, as well as in name. This conception of God is giving a mighty 
Impulse to mankind which will in time reconstruct the institutions of 
humanity, alter the geography of the nations and change the structure 
of the world, and the essence of this conception is, God is love. — Rev. 
U. G. Warren, D.D. 

Our Divine Helper (179). 

Who does not know how day differs from day, even in a life of 
fairly even tenor? Who does not feel the differences of the day's sur- 
faces and see the varieties of these colors? From the golden sunlight 
of a day of Joy to the blackness of a day of woe, through all gradations, 
the scale runs as we journey on. From the grass of the meadow to the 
miry clay of the marsh, to the hot duBt of the level road, to the flints 
of the steep ascent, to the waters of the cold river, varies the surface. 
And the great Companion knows it all. And he breaks up the great 
promise of the Presence to adjust it to every detail of our need. "I am 
with you, all the days and all day long even unto the end." — H. C. G. 
Moule. 

Our Refuge In Trouble (180). 

An old colored woman once went to a Christian who was very ill 
with fever and much depressed in Bplrlt, and said: "Massa, doeB yo' Bee 
the bright side dlB mornin'?" "No, Nanny," said I, "it isn't so bright as 
I wish it." "Well, massa, I alius see de bright side." "You do," Bald I; 
"maybe you haven't had much trouble." "Maybe not," she said; and 
then went on to tell me In her simple, broken way of her life In Vir- 
ginia, of the selling of her children one by one, of the auction sale of 
her husband, and then of herself. She was alone now In camp, without 
having heard from one of her kindred for years. "Maybe I ain't seen 
no trouble, massa." "But, Nanny," said I, "have you seen the bright 
side all the time?" "Alius, massa, alius." "Well, how did you do It?" 
'T)ls Is the way, massa, When I see de brack cloud comln' over" — and 
•he waved her dark hand Inside the tent, as though one might be settling 
down there — "an' 'pears like It's comln' crushln' down on me, don I j 1st 
whips aroun' on de oder side, an' I find do Lord Jesus dar, and den It's 



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all bright and cl'ar. De bright side's alius where Jesus is." — The Chris- 
tian Advocate. 

Our Unseen Ally (181). 

The men of the world take stock of material resources. They num- 
ber the men and the machines, the weapons and the wealth, and all the 
visible helps on which they can rely. They count heads; they measure 
masses; they ask the size of the majority, and if they have all these 
things with them, they feel that they are on the winning side. But turn 
to the men of the Bible and you find all that reversed. There is little 
account taken of numbers and masses; huge figures are treated as 
ciphers, a grain of faith outweighs the resources of a kingdom. All the 
heroic men whose deeds are recorded there speak one language about 
these things — the language of assured confidence and quiet disdain. 
They fling scorn upon the weapons of flesh and rely upon invisible ar- 
mor and defense. We see them alone, unsupported, unarmed, threat- 
ened and opposed by innumerable foes, yet undismayed and as serenely 
6trong as if all the legions of heaven were waiting at their bidding. 
Moses defying the might of Egypt; Gideon with his little regiment 
charging the vast array of Midianites; Jonathan with a single com- 
panion attacking an army of Philistines; Elijah in solitary grandeur 
confronting the furious rabble of Baal's prophets; Daniel setting at 
nought the king, princes, and nobles of Babylon; John the Baptist sternly 
rebuking that incestuous Herod whom all men feared and flattered; Peter 
and John continuing their witness in defiance of the magistrates; Ste- 
phen standing firm before the mob that stoned him; Paul on Mars' Hill 
preaching of the Resurrection to a sceptical and mocking crowd; and 
above all, Jesus in the garden and on the cross forsaken of all men, 
yet confident that he would overcome, and draw all men to him. 

These are all magnificent figures. They show us man made super- 
human. They are pictures of courage, sublime resolution and quench- 
less hope, which have all the color of romance on a background of solid 
fact and truth. Unseen things were a mighty realty to these men, what- 
ever they may be to us. The forces on which they leaned not only 
scattered their fears, but inspired them with an extraordinary cheer- 
fulness. They never show the downcast look of men engaged in a losing 
cause. They have their depressions, but they are only the moods of 
an hour. Victory is written on their faces. There is the tone of triumph 
in their voices. They stand upon firm rock amid the heaving waves of 
human rage and sin, declaring "None of these things move me." For 
they know that certain irresistible and everlasting forces are working 
for them. God's will and unchanging purpose are on their side, and only 
the fickle whims and passions of men against them. Omnipotence is their 
servant, time, eternity, truth and right are their allies; and all the great- 
est things present and to come are working together for their ultimate 
success. — Rev. J. J. Greenhough. 



XXI. THE WRECK OF A SOUL. 



"But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul." — Proverbs 8:36. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

L There is no question concerning sin being wrong done against 
God. Nor is there any question as to its being wrong done our fellow 
man. 

II. But this verse points out the fact which the sinner is so apt to 
overlook at least at the time of committing the sin — sin is a wrong done 
against the sinner himself. 

III. 1. It means the undermining of the spiritual nature. 

2. It means the loss of all the virtues and graces of character which 
make life worth while. 

3. It means the deprivation to the soul of Christ's sustaining power 
amid the conflicts of life. 

4. It means the forfeiture of the eternal blessings won for the soul 
by Christ. 

The Sinner Sells His Soul Into Bondage. 

Sold under sin; a slave; once God's pure child, chosen for holiness 
and happiness; now bound by fetters which neither remorse nor effort 
of the will can break; carried away captive by a force impossible to 
resist. This is the story of Israel's sin. This is the story of sin cherished 
and yielded to in the individual soul. Sin is to be feared. We dare not 
treat it lightly. It must be acknowledged as a real enemy to be met and 
conquered or it will become our conqueror. One verse tells the whole 
story. "The children of Israel did secretly those things that were not 
right against the Lord their God." One of their prophets said, "They do 
these things In the dark, every one in the chambers of his imagery" — 
that is, in his own thoughts, in his secret heart; for they say, "The Lord 
eeeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth. God hath forgotten, he 
will never see it." 

I. The loss of the sense of God is the first thread in the coil of sin. 

"Thou who treadest on enchanted ground, 
Perils and snareB beset thee round; 
Beware of all; guard every part, 
But most, the traitor in thine heart." 

"Once there came a timid knock at my heart's door. I took no heed 
at first. Again it came a little louder. I opened the door and there stood 
a tiny creature with the face of an angel. 'Let me in,' he said; 'I will 
give you a good time.' I hesitated. Then, thinking so cherubic a being 
could do me no harm, I let him in. But as soon as the door was closed 
ha began to grow, and before many months I became his slave. When 
too late I realized It was a trick of Satan to lure me into his kingdom." 

II. It is easy to form habits which it la hard to break. Imperceptibly 
we change, so that things we once regarded as quite out of the range of 
our conduct we do without a twinge of conscience. I speak now of 



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tilings really sinful and hurtful; not such as an enlightened conscience 
may come to see in a truer, more Christian view. Indulgence in what we 
know is wrong stealthily but surely weakens and finally destroys the 
soul's consciousness of God. This led to Israel's captivity. You cannot 
deliberately do wrong when you think of God. Could you tell a lie, or use 
a profane word, or be sulky, or angry, or revengeful, if you stopped to 
think he was looking into your heart? Could you read an impure book 
or think impure thoughts if you considered that at that moment God 
knew every secret imagination? No; we are afraid or ashamed to sin 
when we think of him. Our only safety is to remember always, "Thou 
God seest me." Remember, too, that he loves us while he hates sin. Let 
us not only fear to offend him; let us be sorry to grieve him. Let us do 
nothing that will lessen our consciousness of his presence. — Rev. J. H. 
Knowles. 

III. Then there is the loss of spiritual power. In addition to the 
ruin of guilt, the gospel recognizes a loss of spiritual faculty or power. 
The eye is a little spot, the vital point of vision smaller still, but if it 
receives a fatal hurt all the light of the universe is lost. The glory of the 
summer day, the beauty of the world, the smiling faces of friends — are 
all blotted out. If the ear loses its hearing, all familiar voices, tender 
tones and sweet strains of music go with it. So when a soul loses its 
spiritual power, all is lost. There is deep significance in the figures used 
to describe the soul lost in sin; it is blind, deaf, a heart that perceives 
not, and the final habitation is "outer darkness." How solemn, therefore, 
the Saviour's question, "What is a man profited if he gain the whole 
world and lose his own soul?" — The Advance. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Unrealized Loss (182). 

We take it for granted that what we once possessed, we still possess. 
We think that what yesterday we loved and cherished is still in the circle 
of our life today. And we know not that in secret it has left us, and 
stolen away from our side on feet of wool, and onward we move, uncon- 
scious of our loss, supposing it is still in our company How easy 

and how simple life would be, if the best and the highest warned us of 
its going. ... To have a name to live and yet be dead; to trade on 
our reputation of yesterday; to comfort ourselves in secret on those 
graces that were ours once, but now are ours no longer — that is the trag- 
edy of human character, more terrible than any sudden fall. — G. H. Mor- 
rison. 

The Soul's Slavery (183). 

In the Oriental jungle is a fig-tree that begins life as a parasite. A 
thin, slender shoot, tremulously weak, leans lightly on the base of some 
tall tree, clings and grows. Soon a second shoot, slight and frail, emerges 
near the root, but at a different angle from its aspiring brother; and 
others as delicate follow, until the trunk of the host is sprawled over by 
naked running shoots, crafty and insidious. The trunk becomes enveloped 
in living lace, sapping the life-blood of the tree at all points. A greedy, 
intractable, implacable foe, it gives no quarter, but flourishes upon its 
dead or dying friend, upon which in its youth it leaned delicately for 
support. 



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So did idolatry insinuate itself into Israel, and in a few years the 
goodly tree was overrun and blasted by the stealthy murderer. So evil 
ever beguiles, enslaves, and destroys. — Watkinson. 

The Bitter Memories of Sin (184). 

The most impressive scene I ever witnessed at Vanderbilt University 
was when the venerable Chancellor Garland announced from the platform 
that a certain graduate, whose name he withheld, had sent back his 
diploma. It had been returned with the confession that in a single exam- 
ination the student had used forbidden help, and though he had never 
been suspected and years had passed, he had never had any peace of 
mind. He, therefore, returned his diploma and asked that his name be 
stricken from the roll of alumni and announcement made of his confes- 
sion, preferring public disgrace rather than to bear longer the intolerable 
memory of a single secret sinful act. 

The Chancellor said that he had after much consideration decided 
that the young man's repentance and suffering had been a sufficient 
atonement for hlB error, and insisted on his retaining his diploma. But 
the young man would not consent. "And here is the diploma," said Dr. 
Garland, holding out the mutilated parchment; "but I have cut out the 
name and the secret shall die with me." The hall was as still as death. 
The Chancellor had conveyed his lesson in morality. No one who heard 
that short impressive statement and saw the effect upon the students 
could believe such a thing likely to occur again as long as that tradition 
remained at the University — Charles Foster Smith. 

A Perverted Imagination (185). 
Let a young man have a pure imagination and his world will be a 
world of glory. He may be poor, and his days may be monotonous, but 
life will be clad for him in royal splendor. Let sin once creep into the 
Imagination, it denies and pollutes everything. Unto the pure all things 
are pure. The noble heart lives in a noble world. Unto the impure there 
is nothing pure. And the world teems with horrible suggestion, in face 
and form, in meadow and in moor, and that is what I mean by poverty. 
It is not in what you have that life is rich. Life is really rich in what 
you see. One man may see more in a single beech-tree than another In 
twenty miles of his estate. Therefore I beg of you, watch your imagina- 
tion. Do not degrade it to improper uses. Impoverished, life is not worth 
living, as there are some here tonight who know, too well. — G. H. Morri- 
son, D.D. 

Debasing the Nation (186). 
If there are any who think lightly of sin and who are encouraged In 
aln by an implicit undertsanding that no great harm will come of It, I 
pray you to be sure your sin will find you out. Higher thoughts will one 
day visit you, higher aims will one day win your spirit, a nobler view of 
life present itself to you; and how are you to respond to those new and 
higher calls If your nature is debased by sin? You do yourself Incredible 
wrong. There are duties In life, social, domestic, personal, which you 
will despise yourself If you cannot discharge, and you will not be able to 
discharge them If In youth you do not act your part well and keep your- 
self unsullied by the contamination of Bin. There are enjoyments In 



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life for which sin unfits you. I do not speak of the highest enjoyments, 
but of natural enjoyments, in the same kind as those you now crave, and 
which are possible only to those whose conscience is laden with no evil 
remembrances, whose nature is contracted and withered by no familiarity 
with sin, who can give themselves to enjoyment with the freedom, fear- 
lessness and abandonment which are reserved for the innocent only. In 
vain will you strive to leave your past behind you. If you sin, then no 
more at all can you have that fineness of feeling which only ignorance of 
evil can preserve, no more that high and great conscientiousness which 
once broken is never repaired, no more that courage and wisdom which 
accompany an upright and steady career, no more that respect from other 
men which instinctively departs from those who have lost self-respect. — 
Selected. 

Dooming the Soul to Remorse (187). 

The historians tell us that Charles IX of France, in his youth, had 
humane and tender sensibilities. The demon who tempted him was the 
mother who had nursed him. It is said that when at first this unnatural 
mother proposed to Charles the massacre of the Huguenots, he shrank 
from it in horror: "No, no, madame! they are my loving subjects." 

Had he cherished that sensitiveness St. Bartholomew's Eve would 
never have disgraced the history of his kingdom, and he himself would 
have escaped the fearful remorse which crazed him on his deathbed. To 
his physician he said in his last hours, "Asleep or awake, I see the 
mangled forms of the Huguenots passing before me. They drip with 
blood. They make hideous faces at me. They point to their open wounds, 
and mock me. Oh, that I had spared at least the little infants at the 
breast!" Then he broke out in agonizing cries and screams. Bloody 
sweat oozed from the pores of his skin. He was one of the very few 
cases in history which confirm the possibility of the phenomenon which 
attended our Lord's anguish in Gethsemane. That was the fruit of re- 
sisting, years before, the recoil of his conscience from sin. He trampled 
his conscience under foot, but he did not escape that which we call 
"remorse," a word which comes from the Latin word which means "to 
bite back." — The Tears of Jesus. 

The Soul Deluded (188). 

Poisoned pleasures often cast the charm of magic upon the imagina- 
tion. Seen from afar, the stolen apples look large and rosy, the stolen 
waters sparkle as they flash above the fountain, and the stolen pleasures 
promise unwonted piquancy and crispness. Sin, wearing her disguise of 
beauty, points to the morrow, but the pleasure promised is always a 
mirage that flees on before the eager pursuer. Never once have the stolen 
waters been sweet. In the first fall, the forbidden fruit held an unwonted 
bloom. But the apple turned to ashes, and the stolen waters left a bad 
taste in the mouth, and when the incident was over the garden had be- 
come a desert, full of thorns and thickets. Achan coveted the wedges of 
silver. In imagination the white metal shone like the sunlight. And the 
theft ended with broken hearts and lives. It is the old, old story. Queen 
Jezebel is discontented in her palace and her gardens because, looking 
out of her window, she sees another vineyard whose waters and fountains 
look sweet. But when the friend's villa has been stolen, and the coveted 



THE WRECK OF A SOUL 



115 



possession was hers, the multitudes who once cheered the beautiful queen 
began to frown upon her, and the drama ended with ermine robes dragged 
through the mire, and with a woman's corpse lying in the street. Judas 
is typical. From the beginning of history to the present hour, every 
betrayal of office or trust fund, or solemn pledge of friendship and honor, 
has ended with the soul revolting against its sin and itself. The Pitts- 
burg banker commits suicide; the youth who robbed the express com- 
pany confesses and goes to jail; the disgraced merchant dies of a broken 
heart. For he that sinneth wrongeth his own soul. — N. D. Hillis. 

The Soul's Final Ruin (189). 
A gentleman from New York met in the South a lady of wealth and 
beauty and married her. She had been brought up a Christian girl, but 
when she found herself in the circles of wealth and fashion in New York 
City she gave way to the temptations which too often prove ruinous to 
young people in such situations. Dinners, receptions, balls, the opera, 
were the order not of one day, but of many days. Her whole life was a 
whirl of gayety and pleasure. Once, when returning from a trip to Cali- 
fornia, the train on which she rode was wrecked, and she was among the 
dangerously wounded. She was carried into the nearest railway station 
and laid upon the floor. She was told she had only an hour to live. She 
was anxious to get back home, but that was impossible. "Only an hour 
to live! Is that all, doctor?" she piteously asked. "That Is all," he 
replied. 

Then she gave way to the saddest cries the doctor had ever heard. 
"I have spent my money so foolishly. I might have done so much good 
with it. But I've done nothing but lead the fashion. And now it Is too 
late." The cry of a lost soul bewailing the irreparable past. 



XXII. YOUTH FOR CHRIST. 



"Remember Thy Creator In the Days of Thy Youth." — Eccleslaates 12:1. 

(Children's Day). 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

L The infinite value of a child is attested by its susceptibility for 
God. "What is the son of man, that thou visitest him?" Frederick Harri- 
son, the agnostic, in his autobiography, says, "You put yourself in the 
planetary space, a mere dot, and think that the almighty Maker can have 
discernment of you!" He postulates the existence of the Infinite, and 
then denies him the power to discern the minute. But surely if God is 
great enough to create worlds, he is great enough to regard the infinitesi- 
mal. The power which passes, on the one hand, beyond the range of the 
telescope, must pass equally beyond that of the microscope. He can tell 
the stars and call them by their names; he must be able to number tho 
hairs of our heads. How great is the eon of man, since God can visit 
him, and find something in him, which responds to his own nature and 
satisfies the hunger of his heart for love! But does God visit even a little 
child? Certainly! "Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if any — ." 
"Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom 
of heaven." "Jesus called a little child unto him." 

The fact that a child may receive and believe in him proves conclu- 
sively that it has a profound affinity with the Son of God; and on this 
account, it outweighs in value all the universe in which it lives. "Out of 
the mouths of babes and sucklings" Thou receivest praise which creation's 
myriad voices never equal. 

" T . The child's greatness is attested, also, by its capacity for rule. 

"Thou madest him to have dominion." Listen to the ancient word, — 
"And God said: Let us make man after our likeness, and let them have 
dominion over the fish, the fowl, and the cattle." In man's creation he 
was crowned with glory and honor, and all things were put under his feet. 
Jesus, enthroned and glorified, is the type and pattern of the height to 
which any child of Adam's race may be raised. That little child in your 
arms may not only become President of the United States, or other great 
statesman, preacher, writer, of the next age, but may share Christ's 
throne, may reign with him in light, may sit beside him in heavenly 
places, because it is written, "He hath washed us from our sins in his 
blood, and made us unto our Lord, kings and priests." 

III. Attestation of a child's greatness is given in the destined ulti- 
mate supremacy of the child's type of religion. 

"Thou hast ordained strength out of the mouth of babes and suck- 
lings, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." From the 
pure calm heavens, the psalmist turns to the contrast presented by the 
existence of moral evil. There are everywhere the enemy and the aven- 
ger; but they shall be stilled and silenced by the child-heart, with Its sim- 
plicity, purity, and praise: "For God hath chosen the weak things of the 
world, to put to shame the strong and base things of the world, and 



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things that are despised, and things that are not, that he may bring to 
nought the things that are, that no flesh may glory in his presence." — ■ 
Rev. F. B. Meyer. 

Jesus Wants the Children. 

1. God wants your early years. Children, learn what Jesus wants 
from you. He wants your childhood. He wants your faith and your love. 
He wants you to pattern your childhood after his. He wants you to obey 
your parents as he obeyed his. He wants you to treat with respect those 
who are older. He wants you to ask questions and to learn. He wants 
you to make a public confession of his name, as he publicly confessed 
his Father's name. He wants you to join in his worship and praise. — 
David Gregg, D.D. 

2. The wrong of withholding our youth from God. A Christian 
woman was employed as a nurse in a house where a loved mother lay ill. 
Her daughter, a girl of fifteen, had never given her heart to Christ, fear- 
ing that by so doing she might lose some of her youthful pleasures, and 
saying that when she grew older, then she would give herself to him. One 
day she came into the house bringing a bouquet of beautiful fresh carna- 
tions for her mother. The nurse commented upon their loveliness and 
then said: "We will not take them up to your mother now — they are too 
fresh and beautiful; we will wait a few days until they have begun to 
fade and wither." The young girl was surprised, almost indignant, and 
sought an explanation for such a seemingly unnatural course. Said the 
nurse: "Is not this what you are doing to your heavenly Father? Are 
you not by your conduct reserving for yourself the beauty and freshness 
of your young life, and waiting to offer him the faded blossoms from 
which all the beauty and freshness has departed?" — Grace A. Stevenson. 

3. Children in the Kingdom of Heaven. I believe that we may take 
these words of our Saviour in their literal meaning, as implying that the 
kingdom of God, the assembly of redeemed souls in heaven, is in great 
measure made up of little children. All that die in infancy are saved, and 
half the human beings born into this world die in infancy. If the entire 
human race should be gathered, sanctified, and forgiven, before the throne 
above, still each second one there would never have known more of this 
sinful and sorrowful world than comes within the brief experience of early 
childhood. 

"God took them in his mercy, as lambs untasked, untried; 
He fought the fight for them; he won the victory, and they are sancti- 
fied." 

4. The Child Jesus and the Children. The Gospel has not narrowed, 
surely it has enlarged, the privileges of the kingdom; the New Covenant 
can not be less generous to the young than the Old Covenant was. 

A bridge-sentence between the Old and the New is found in Psalm 
8:2, which was quoted by Christ, "Out of the mouths of babes and suck- 
lings hast thou ordained strength." In the East a man-child is still kept 
at the breast till his third or fourth year, and under the stimulating sun- 
shine Oriental children are much more precocious than the Occidental. 
A four-year-old child can thus intelligently sing Christ's praise. This text, 
so honored, reveals the whole spirit, genius, and tendency of Christianity, 
for it teaches us to cherish great expectations regarding the young. On 



YOUTH FOR CHRIST 



119 



the threshold of the Gospels we are introduced to two infants — Jesus and 
John the Baptist. The childhood of Jesus is most significant. The first 
Adam had no childhood, for he was never born; but the second Adam 
came to earth as a babe. This fact hallows childhood as nothing else 
could, and it appeals powerfully to young hearts, and wonderfully recom- 
mends Christ to them as the Saviour of children. The childhood of Jesus 
makes it easy for a little child to sing with intelligence and feeling such 
a hymn as "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild." Christ no longer appears to 
them a far-off, unearthly, and terrifying being. — Wells. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
"Train Up a Child" (190). 
The memory of the prayer which he had learned by his mother's 
knee saved, so he himself tells us, a great American statesman from athe- 
ism. "The older I grow," says Thomas Carlyle, "and I am now upon the 
brink of eternity, the more comes back to me the first sentence of the 
Catechism which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its 
meaning becomes, 'What is the chief end of man? To Glorify God, and to 
enjoy him forever.' " — George Milligan, D.D. 

Religious Nurture (191). 

Dr. Hillis cited the following incident in emphasizing the value of 
religious nurture: 

A century ago an English deist, calling upon Coleridge, inveighed 
bitterly against the rigid instruction in Christian homes. "Consider," said 
he, "the helplessness of a little child. Before it has wisdom or 
judgment to decide for itself it is prejudiced in favor of Chris- 
tianity. How selfish is the parent who stamps his religious 
ideas into a child's receptive nature, as a molder stamps the 
hot Iron with his model! I shall prejudice my children neither 
for Christianity nor for Buddhism nor for atheism, but allow them to wait 
for their mature years. Then they can open the question and decide for 
themselves." Later the poet led his atheistic acquaintance into the gar- 
den. Suddenly he exclaimed: "How selfish is the gardener who- ruth- 
lessly stamps his prejudice in favor of roses and violets and strawberries 
Into a receptive garden-bed. The time was when in April I pulled up the 
young weeds, the parsley, the thistle, and planted the garden-beds out 
with vegetables and flowers. Now I have decided to permit the garden to 
go until September. Then the black clods can choose for themselves be- 
tween cockleberries and currants and strawberries." 

The Child Spirit (192). 
The child spirit exemplifies humility, sense of helplessness and de- 
pendence, trust, the wholesomeness of an unvarying docility; and no less 
the habit of lively expectation, of keen interest In comrades, the longing 
for love, an unembarrassed openness of heart — and above all a marvelous 
plasticity; so much can be done with a child! So far forth, here Is our 
pattern. We are, fundamentally, to be continuously plastic, character 
never hardening, growth never completed, always open to new Impres- 
sions and new truth, ever keenly expectant — our faces Bet, with shining 
eyes, to the future; our uplook tender, trustful, dominant; our motlvoB 



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got, not from the conventional world or from inward bias, but from the 
Father; our nature ever expanding, vision ever widening, our interest in 
our fellows always lively and unhampered by convention, like the normal 
wide-awake boy who cares little whether his comrade is ragged or well 
dressed, with no hardening consciousness of class or earthly rank. — 
Selected. 

Church and Child (193). 

The proper attitude of the Church to the child is presented to us in 
Ruth 4:16: "And Naomi took the child, and laid it in her bosom, and be- 
came nurse unto it." Naomi-like, the mother Church, at best, welcomes 
the child, shields the child, fosters and trains the child, and has her 
ample reward in the child. For she is nourished by her nursing, as Naomi 
was by Obed. We can not set bounds to the far-reaching influences of 
such godly nurture; "Obed, he is the father of Jesse, the father of David," 
of whom, according to the flesh, the Messiah came. 

The place given to the child is the gauge of civilization in every 
age and nation. What have classical Greece and Rome done for the 
child? Not one book for chidren was ever written by a Greek or Roman 
author. They had fairy tales and nursery tales, but they were all com- 
posed for grown-up people. The bare recital of their treatment of chil- 
dren appalls one. Plato, following the lead of Sparta wishes no mother 
to know her own child. He would have all the babies reared by the 
State in a common pen or fold. Seneca praises the drowning of weak chil- 
dren. When a child was born at Athens, Sparta or Rome, it was usually 
laid at the feet of the father. If he turned away, it must die; but if he 
stooped down and lifted it up, it was allowed to live. The children of 
even the rich and educated were sometimes killed or exposed. No one 
questioned the absolute right of the father to dispose of them as he 
wished. The traveler can still see at Athens and Sparta the spots where 
little infants were left to die of cold or hunger or be devoured by wild 
beasts. Some of the boys who seemed to be strong were picked up and 
trained as gladiators or slaves, while the girls were reared for a life of 
shame. Often beggars took the little outcasts, maimed and disfigured 
them, and exhibited them in public that they might extract charity from 
the passers-by. Socrates tells how loudly a mother used to scream when 
her first child was taken from her, implying that she did not scream so 
much, if at all, when her other children were destroyed. 

Classical culture was childless. Their poets, painters, and sculptors 
usually do not notice the child at all, or, if they do, it is not for his own 
sake. Great as they were — the intellectual tutors of civilized nations — 
they failed to discover the child or the unspeakable value of his training. 
He was usually left to the care of the slaves, who did not fail to teach 
him all their own vices. 

Paganism, ancient and modern, knows not how to reverence the 
child. The exceptions are very few; ancient Egypt is the most remark- 
able among them. Take China for example. A Chinese town has what is 
known as the "Child's ditch." Like the Barathron at Athens and Taygetus 
at Sparta, it is the place where children are left to die. — James 
Wells, D.D. 



YOUTH FOR CHRIST 



121 



Child Nurture (194). 

The late John Flake called attention to the fact that while the young 
of birds and beasts are dependent upon their parents only for a few 
weeks, or months, in the human family this period of dependence 
stretches out into years. The object unquestionably is that there may be 
ample opportunity for character-molding. 

And this is the central purpose of the home — the moral and spiritual 
nurture of the child nature, so that, without any need of earthquake con- 
versions or cyclone revivals the young may grow up into Christ as natur- 
ally as by Instinct, the fledgling robin becomes the nest builder. 

Think you that there would be a jar or a wrench when the child, 
naturally, at the age of discretion, steps into true relationship with God, 
his Father? I shall never forget the story of a little Scotch girl, not 
many months over, and raised in the church of her fathers. A preacher 
was stopping at the house where Mary served and one afternoon he met 
her in the yard, and asked her abruptly, "Mary, have you found Jesus?" 
Here eyes opened wide, her armful of kindling wood dropped to the 
ground, her lips parted in amazement as she breathlessly responded, 
"Why, I dinna ken that I had lost him." 

But it is just here that the home so often fails. The fact is that 
many so-called Christian homes are essentially heathen homes, in the 
ideals which they enthrone in the child-mind, and the atmosphere with 
which they surround the child-life. Sometimes this results from lack of 
opportunity; fathers are absent from dawn till dusk, and mothers over- 
burdened with a multiplicity of cares. A neighbor laddie, whose father is 
a traveling man, recently, offended by some rebuke administered during 
the father's brief home coming, said, "I wish that man who is staying 
at our house would go away again." The conditions which this incident 
emphasizes are rather a tragedy than a joke. 

But in many cases lack of inclination — which means lack of a truly 
spiritual outlook on life — accounts for this failure to nourish the spirit- 
ual life of the child. It is one of the curses of the commercial spirit of 
this commercial age that it stamps its false estimates of life upon the 
Innocent heart of childhood. Could any more tragic vision be conjured up 
than that of the child holding up its soul, In a worldly home, that the 
life-stamp may be put upon It, only to have the sordid dollar mark set 
there? 

"As a Little Child" (195). 

A number of years ago, in a village of New York, there lived a min- 
ister of deep piety, who was peculiarly successful In meeting a class of 
men then common In that country, who prided themselves upon their fan- 
cied elevation of thought and character which enabled them to look down 
upon Christians, and particularly Christian teachers, with the condescen- 
sion of unquestionable superiority. 

One of these men was found by this mlnlstor laboring In his hay- 
fleld. The minister followed his parishioner for a time In the field. The 
farmer busily swung his scythe, stopping occasionally to addresB the 
minister In a bantering tone. 

After some general conversation the minister had spoken of the 
church and Its services. 



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"Oh," was the ready reply, "I have not time to hother myself ahout 
religion." And then, after a little, "If there is a God, I think I will keep 
out of his way until he explains some things to me a little more clearly 
and doesn't threaten so much." 

The minister did not answer this fling. Presently the farmer called 
to his little girl, who was busily playing with the new mown grass: 
"Emily." 

At once the little girl came toward him. 

"Take care or I shall cut you," said the father, as the child ran per- 
ilously near the scythe. "Go to the end of the lane. Be sure not to open 
the west gate, and wait for me." 

As the child turned to obey her father, the minister spoke to her: 

"Emily why did your father warn you away from his scythe?" 

She looked surprised, but answered, "So that I would not be hurt." 

"Why did he tell you not to open the west gate?" continued the 
minister. 

"I don't know," said the child, now somewhat alarmed by his ques- 
tioning; and she darted away. 

Again the minister called after her. "Emily, are you not too busy to 

bother yourself ." But Emily was already on the way, and did not 

look back to answer. Then turning to his parishioner, the minister said 
slowly: "As a little child. Whosover shall not receive the Kingdom of 
God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." So he left him that 
day. 

Some months after this little Emily was taken very ill. She had 
learned to love her pastor, and her Saviour also. The pastor and his 
parishioner stood side by side before the couch on which the father's pet 
lay dying. 

"Emily," said the pastor, "do you love Jesus?" She looked up and 
smiled. Again he asked: "Do you remember what Jesus said of chil- 
dren?" Her lips whispered the answer, "Suffer little children to come 
unto Me." 

The father was in tears. As the pastor turned from the room he laid 
his hand on his parishioner's shoulder, and again repeated the words, 
"As a little child! As a little child!" 

A few weeks later, in the village church, the now stricken father stood 
by the side of his Christian wife to be received into membership; and 
with broken accents which sent a tide of deep emotion through the con- 
gregation of worshipers, he said, "I come as a little child." — Christian 
Work. 

In the Fold (196). 

A lad after being taught the lesson cf the "ninety and nine" went 
home and told his father that he wanted to "be in the fold," he wanted 
to become a Christian. "O, you are too young," was his father's only 
answer. At dusk a storm was approaching, and the father sent the boy 
out to put the sheep into the fold. "Did you get them all in safely?" the 
father asked when he returned. "1 put all the old sheep in." "You don't 
mean that you left the lambs out, do you?" "Why, of course, father; I 
thought they were too young." "You are right," then answered the father. 



YOUTH FOR CHRIST 



123 



"You can only be safe from the storms of temptation by being in the fold 
of the Good Shepherd, and you cannot enter too young." 

When We Teach a Child (197). 

What do we mean when we teach the child? 
We put a thought that is sweet and mild 
Into a mind that is waiting for seed, 
Into a heart that has never felt greed. 
The man with such thoughts is never beguiled, 
For we teach the man when we teach the child. 

What do we do when we teach the child? 

We take the treasures which may be piled 

In lesson or noem or nature's store. 

And transform them all into golden ore 

Of character, which can not be reviled: 

The strong man comes from the well-taught child. 

What do we do when we teach the child? 
We take the nature, untamed and wild, 
And mold it into a life serene. 
With heart and will and judgment clean. 
We make the man who is undefiled 
When we teach, as we ought, the little child. 

What do we do when we teach the child? 

We plant the truth, which The Undefiled, 

Our Lord and Master, said freedom makes. 

Through knowledge, true freedom comes and takes 

Its place, and dominates passion wild: 

We have saved the man, when we've saved the child. 



XXIII. GOD'S PARDONING GRACE. 



Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins 
be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow. — Isa. 1:18. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
In preaching on the invitation of grace with its promise of pardon 
Rev. EL Mason developed the subject along the following lines: 

I. You believe that the Gospel is true; perhaps upon no one point 
are your convictions so full and clear and decided. It matters not whence 
this conviction has been derived; we have the fact, and here we take 
our stand and make our appeal. Why not embrace It? 

II. You admit the Gospel record to he true and you also approve of 
the entire subject matter of its testimony. The human mind, unclouded 
by prejudice and unperverted by sophistry, is always in favor of the 
Gospel. If the Gospel is not only true, but if in all its principles and 
claims it is precisely what you feel it ought to be; if you expect, sooner 
or later to come upon the ground where it would put you, and be what 
it requires you to be, — why, we ask, in view of all that is intelligible in 
your convictions of the truth and reasonableness, why not embrace it? 

III. Conscience, enlightened by the truth, requires you to embrace 
the Gospel, reproves you for not doing it, and heralds a painful retribu- 
tion for refusing or neglecting to do it. Conscience may be stupid some- 
times and not speak; but its voice whenever heard, Is clearly, decidedly, 
uniformly in favor of practical religion. 

IV. You feel that the Gospel Is the very thing for need; that is, as 
you look at it carefully, it is precisely adapted to all those wants which, 
aa unsatisfied, are the causes of your disquietude and pain. You see and 
feel that it is the very hope your troubled spirit needs. You have no 
doubt that it Is a good hope, a well-founded hope; why not embrace it and 
let your emancipated spirit go free? 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. George F. Pentecost, in presenting this subject of God's 
offer of forgiving mercy, and his challenge to the sinner to accept it, 
used the following divisions. 

I. In the Scriptures, God is seen dealing with man more as an 
estranged favorite whom he is seeking to reconcile to himself, than aa 
an offender under the law whom he la seeking to punish. Who can read 
the story of God seeking after Adam in the garden where he had hid him- 
self, without seeing that God came and called, not for the sake of pun- 
ishing the offendera, but in order to save and comfort them concerning 
their sin, with an assurance of his love and gTace? The Bible Is not so 
much the revelation of the purpose of God to punish sin, to vindicate the 
law and satisfy JuBtice, as to recover man to himself and fulfill In him 
all the good pleasure of his bleaaed will; though "he will by no means 
clear" the persistently and deliberately guilty rejecters of grace. 

II. It Is, therefore, the Gospel, and not the Law, which is of prime 
Importance in studying the revelation of God. When I say the Gospel, I 
do not mean the Scriptures of the New Testament only, but the Gospel 



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in the Old Testament as well; for that also is saturated with the gospel 
of God's love. The first as well as the last message to sinful man con- 
tained in the Bible is a word of grace. The Law was not given to save; 
it can only condemn. It was given to reveal sin; to lead man to the 
right point of view, by showing him his true condition as a sinner before 
God; and, so far as its ceremonial enactments were concerned, to care 
for him as a schoolmaster or tutor, till Christ should come with all the 
fullness of grace and truth, to set him free from condemnation and 
death and introduce him to the glorious liberty of the sons of God. 

III. Jesus, who is the perfect revelation of God, the "brightness of 
his glory and the express image of his person," is everywhere seen in the 
New Testament as God's well-beloved Son and Servant meting out grace 
to sinners. All up and down that weary land we hear his tender voice 
crying out, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest." "For God so loved the world that he gave his only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life." "For God sent me not to condemn the world, but 
that the world, through me, might be saved." 

ILLUSTRATIVE TRUTHS AND INCIDENTS. 
Hard to Convince Men (198). 

The hardest thing I ever attempt to do is to try to show men and 
women who do not know Christ how wonderfully tender and kind he is. 
Once in the streets of Baltimore three little sisters were standing at a 
shop window full of toys, and the two who could see were trying to de- 
scribe what they saw to the blind sister. They were exhausting their 
powers of description to bring to the mind of the little blind girl what they 
saw. But although she listened greedily, they could present only an 
imperfect representation. The gentleman who saw the circumstance said 
that it was extremely touching to hear them try to describe the collection 
of toys in the store, but they could not do it. My dear friend, that is just 
like trying to tell you about Jesus. You must come and see for your- 
self. — Banks. 

No Inexpiable Offenses (199). 

The ancient Romans recognized what they called "inexpiable crimes." 
But Christianity knows no "inexpiable offenses; it leads us perpetually 
from repentance to love, and from love to repentance, it discloses a 
Mediator exercising infinite mercy and forgiveness. 

A Great Saviour (200). Said John Newton when near the end of his 
life: "My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things — that I am 
a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour." 

Forgiveness For All Sinners (201). 

H. C. Trumbull said when he was in Libby Prison the news came 
that his wife was in Washington, and his little child was dying: and the 
next news that came was that his child was dead, and the mother re- 
mained in Washington in hopes that her husband could come with her 
and take that child off to New England and bury it; but that was the last 
he heard. One day the news came into the prison that there was a boat 
from City Point, and there were over nine hundred men in the prison 



GOD'S PARDONING GRACE 



127 



rejoicing at once. They expected to get good news. Then came the 
news that there was only one man in that whole number that was to be 
let go, and they all began to say, "Who is it?" It was some one who had 
some influential friend at Washington that had persuaded the government 
to take an interest in him and get him out. The whole prison was 
excited. At last an officer came and shouted at the top of his voice, 
"Henry Clay Trumbull!" The chaplain told me his name never sounded 
so sweet to him as it did that day. That was election, but you can't find 
any Henry Clay Trumbull in the Bible. There is no special case in the 
Bible. God's proclamations are to all sinners. Everbody can get out of 
prison that wants to. The trouble is, they don't want to go. They had 
rather be captives to some darling sin. — Moody. 

"He Did Not Scold Me" (202). 

Many years ago a man took to drinking and fell so low that his 
family disowned him, and at last even his wife cast him off. One night 
hungry, penniless, and footsore, he stumbled into the Pacific Garden Mis- 
sion in Chicago. Some one was singing, "There's a wideness in God's 
mercy," and as he tells it now, "It just broke me all up." When the 
meeting was over he wandered out to the home where his wife lived 
with her father. He threw himself down In the back yard, hoping that 
when morning dawned, he might get a glimpse of his little boy, whom he 
was no longer permitted to visit. As the eastern sky began to blush, and 
the old song kept ringing in his ears, he says: "Instead of creeping up 
to the window, I just crept up to the feet of Jesus, and greatly to my as- 
tonishment," he adds, "he didn't scold me, — he knew I had been scolded 
enough, — and he didn't pity me; and he didn't give me any advice, either. 
He knew I'd had plenty of that. He just put his arms around my neck 
and loved me. And when the sun arose I was a new man." — Brooklyn 
Eagle. 

Another Chance (203). 

The wife of a business man in Chicago was smitten with a peculiar 
malady that affected her brain. The physicians were called but brought 
no relief. He left his business and devoted himself to the restoration 
of the sick one. They went abroad and he put her under the care of the 
most eminent physicians, but all in vain. At last a doctor said: "I have 
one more suggestion to make. You tell me her childhood was spent in 
the South. Take her back. Let her wander in the fields and pluck the 
flowers and listen to the birds, and wade in the brook, and perchance the 
Influence of childhood will awaken the dormant brain." He took her to 
the Southland, and she wandered through the fields and plucked the flow- 
ers and waded In the brook. At night she lay down to sleep. By the 
bedside was the husband watching every move. In the morning when she 
opened her eyes she looked around In bewilderment for a little, then she 
said, "Where have I been?" He answered, "You have been upon a long 
Journey, but you have come home," "And whore have you been?" "I 
have been always at your side just waiting, waiting." I bring the mes- 
sage of a Saviour who through nil the days of your wandering has been 
at your side waiting, yearning, loving. O come to yourself, look into his 
eyes with the light of faith, throw yourself Into IiIb arms. — Pres. Advance. 



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"Come" (204) 

Mr. Moody was holding a service when a business man came and 
tried to get into the building. They were singing that hymn, "O Word of 
Words the Sweetest," and had just reached the chorus, "Come, Oh, Come 
to Me;" that was all this business man heard. He made his way back 
to his office, but he could not attend his business. Across the pages of 
the books he saw that word, "Come," written. He made his way back 
to his home, and he heard it in the ticking of his clock. He shut himself 
up in his room, and he heard it in the beating of his heart, and he told 
Mr. Moody that alone in his room, down on his knees, repenting of his 
sin, he received Jesus Christ as his Saviour. 

When Mr. Moody was preaching in New England, a young man heard 
him night after night. He felt that he ought to be a Christian, and again 
and again his hand was lifted for prayer; and again and again he passed 
into the inquiry service; but he said, "Tomorrow night, I will settle it," 
and leaving the building, he passed away from the service. Walking out 
to his home at the edge of the city, he passed underneath a row of trees 
on the way to his house. Suddenly he stopped. The moonlight was shin- 
ing through the trees, he took his walking stick and drew a line across 
the pathway. Then he stepped back and looked at it. "Now," said he, 
"if I step over that line it means that I will surrender. If I go around 
that line it means that my determination is against Jesus Christ." He 
stood looking at the line only for a moment, and then deliberately passed 
over it And it is a bit of history that the man who that night found 
himself near to the kingdom of God, and by an act of his will simply 
stepped over the line, became one of the most earnest Christians, and one 
of the most faithful workers for Christ.— Chapman, 



XXIV. SOUL PEACE. 



"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee; 
because he trusteth in thee." — Isaiah 26:3. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. David Magie unfolded this text along the following lines 
of cleavage: 1. The author of this peace is God. 2. The peace is "per- 
fect" in its source; its measure; and its adaptation to our needs. 3. To 
make it ours we must link ourselves to God by a childlike trust. 4. We 
cannot fail to realize that many who hope for salvation lack this perfect 
peace. Sometimes God withdraws it in order to awaken a deeper sense of 
dependence. Sometimes this lack results from physical or mental condi- 
tions. Sometimes we concentrate our attention upon our trials instead 
of on God. 5. But it is not only our privilege but our duty to enjoy it. 
Without it we lack Christian comfort: we are unfitted for effectual serv- 
ice; we cannot glorify God as we ought. 

• * * * 

Rev. Dr. W. L. Watkinson penetrates to the heart of the verse in 
the following Inspiring summing up of its implications: 

Let us not dismiss this as mere poetry, but cherish it in our heart as 
the most trustworthy truth we know. 

Had we lived in the geological ages we should have thought the earth 
as we now know it an utter impossibility. Then vast and awful monsters 
stalked the slime, the sea swarmed with ferocious sharks and snakes, 
the sky was darkened by winged dragons, and there was not a bird, but- 
terny, or flower. How sceptical we should have been if then one had 
prophesied of this modern earth with its sky full of singers, its meadows 
full.of flowers, its silver sea a delight! Yet all has come to pass. 

And greater things shall come to pass, for the mouth of the Lord 
hatn spoken it A recent sceptic sneers at what he calls the "green- 
meadow happiness of the herd;" but to feed amongst the lilies is better, 
nobler, happier than to redden the meadows with our brother's blood. 

* * * 

Kev. James A. Stalker, D.D., in discussing this theme, said: In 
the moral and spiritual sphere everything depends on whether or not 
the Individual is right with God. If not, no agitation or exertion can be 
too extreme, for "there is no peace to the wicked." Still, rest Is both the 
deepest craving of the human heart and one of the moBt golden words of 
tne gospel. Never did there fall from the lips of the Saviour a more 
cnaracteristic utterance than when he said: "Come unto me, all ye that 
laoor and are heavy laden, and f will give you rest." He knew the secrnt, 
lor, in spite of the vicissitudes and agitations of his existence there was 
perrect tranquillity at the center of his being. He was giving of his own 
wnen he promised rest to the restless. So he Bald himself: "Peace I 
leave with you, my peace I give unto you;" and it Ib to him we must look 
wnen we wish to discover how restleaBneBB Ib to bo cured. 

1. By Faith. — When Jcbus Ib called "tho author and finisher of faith," 



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the meaning is not that it is he who produces and perfects faith in us. 
That he does so is true, but this is not the truth there taught. The 
meaning is that he was the primary and the supreme exemplar of faith; 
he exercised it himself in an unexampled degree. The Son of Man was 
a man of faith, and therein lay the secret of the tranquillity which girt 
about his tragic existence. He knew why he had been sent to this world, 
and he believed that everything happening to him was conducing to the 
end set before him. He taught the same conviction to the children of 
men. They had not come into the world by chance; each had come in 
his own time and to his own place; each had a sphere to fill and a work 
to do; and he was immortal till his work was done. The Heavenly Father 
would not have brought us here had he not meant well by us; he did not 
create us to starve or destroy us. If he feeds the ravens and clothes 
the lilies, much more will he feed and clothe his children. Such a simple 
conception of life may seem a gospel for the prosperous and for the 
piping times of peace. 

II. By Prayer. — The inner life of our Lord is unveiled sufficiently in 
the gospels to show the use he made of prayer to recapture the serenity 
of his spirit and to face the multiplying complexities of his vocation. The 
land of his birth is a mountainous country, where from the towns a 
retreat is easy to the solitude of the hill-pasture, and he sought this ora- 
tory in all the difficult moments of his career. Accordingly, when it is 
said that he went up into "the mountains," it is generally useless to ask 
which mountain is intended, for the reference is simply to the hill-coun- 
try, which was nearly everywhere. Thither he would escape at night, 
after getting quit of the crowds by which he was beset, or he would rise 
up before dawn from among his sleeping disciples and ascend to his 
favorite haunt. There he would lay his spirit on the bosom of God, and 
return to the city encompassed with peace and able for the labor which 
awaited him. 

The mere act of entering habitually into the presence of God gives 
self-control, and so subdues the symptoms of restlessness. But there is 
more than this in prayer: it brings down peace from on high, and makes 
available for us the power of Him who is able to make all things work 
together for good. Even calamities which he blesses are better for us 
than prosperity without his blessing. 

III. By Work. — One of those best acquainted with Jesus said that he 
"went about continually doing good," and the records convey the impres- 
sion of a life full to overflowing. Even on the Sabbath, which was nat- 
urally a day of rest for a Jew, he could not refrain from doing works of 
mercy; there were in his nature swelling currents of benevolence which 
would have their way. It is curious that, with this example before them, 
so many bearing his name have fled from their fellow men and shut them- 
selves up behind cloister walls. But that their pent-up energy has made 
them uneasy there is proved by the emphasis laid in monastic books of 
devotion on accidia, which was accounted one of the seven deadly sins. 
Usually this is translated "sloth," but it was really restlessness — the 
uneasiness of those gifted with strong feelings and impulses which found 
no vent. It is sometimes accounted a sin of the Middle Ages, unknown in 
the modern world; but there are plenty of victims of accidia among the 



SOUL PEACE 



131 



unemployed of the upper and middle classes. In country and suburban 
life there are multitudes sick of a vague disease, which they themselves 
do not understand, but for which the only cure is the prescription: "Go 
and do some good to somebody." 

The law of nature and the doctrine of the most earnest thinkers is 
that everyone ought, on the one hand, to have his own work in the state, 
and, on the other, receive his own share of the common products and 
rewards. This alone can give true rest to a healthy mind, and he who 
has thus found his place in the universal plan will, on his own level, 
experience the promise which was supremely fulfilled in the Man of 
Sorrows: "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied." 

* * * 

Bishop Phillips Brooks' illuminating comment on this "perfect peace" 
which God offers us was: What a vast portion of our lives is spent in 
anxious and useless forebodings concerning the future, either our own or 
that of our dear ones! Present joys, present blessings slip by and we 
miss half their sweet flavor, and all for want of faith in him who provides 
for the tiniest insect in the sunbeam. Why cannot we, slipping our hand 
Into his each day, walk trustingly over that day's appointed path, thorny 
or flowery, crooked or straight, knowing that evening will bring us Bleep, 
peace, and home? 

* * * 

And Rev. George Rudolph Freeman adds: May there rest upon us 
that peace which is the cure of care, taking from love its anxiety, from 
bereavement its anguish, from desolateness its loneliness, resting upon 
human hearts as sunlight upon all the land. 

ILLUSTRATIVE TRUTHS AND INCIDENTS. 
The Perfect Peace of Implicit Trust (205). 

They were a young married couple. The union was in every way a 
most congenial one, a bond all the more strong and tender because hal- 
lowed by a common love to the same Saviour. Soon after the birth of 
their second child, the young mother was taken QL The husband would not 
for weeks allow himself to despair of her ultimate restoration to her 
former health. But the physician was forced, at length, to pronounce the 
case beyond hope of cure. 

Calling at my friend's house soon after this announcement, he met 
me at the door and led me into a room apart, and while we were kneeling 
in prayer, although in an agony of grief, he then and there made a full 
surrender of that dearest treasure of his heart, which he acknowledged 
as a now recalled gift of his Heavenly Father's love. 

The surrender was complete. Victory over death was won, weeks In 
advance of Its approach. The invalid's trust had been serene and un- 
shaken from the nrBt. Now they are one In confident assurance that all 
has been ordered in infinite wisdom. 

The sick room, on which had rested the gloom of the husband's hith- 
erto Inconsolable grief, is now bo brightened by his changed look and 
manner that friends are drawn to It by the cheerful greetings with which 
their vlsltB are now met. 

In an even more beautiful way the invalid mother evlncod tho reality 



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and depth of the like joy-imparting surrender. The child was sent to a 
faithful nurse, who was in the habit of bringing the baby in, every few 
days, for the mother to see. A friend suggested to the mother that this 
was mistaken kindness on the part of the nurse, owing to the new pain 
which each of these partings must give her. "Oh, no," she said. "I 
had my final parting with the little fellow weeks ago. I gave him up to 
God as soon as I was assured that I was not going to get well. The 
pain of parting is over; let the nurse bring him in as she has been 
doing." 

How well for us could we as God's children anticipate our appointed 
end by an immediate, full, and loving surrender to him of our whole 
earthly life and of all, even the most valued, of our earthly plans, ambi- 
tions, possessions and hopes. From the moment of such voluntary di- 
vesting ourselves of it, then, and then only, do we enter on our fullest 
enjoyment of the world. — Ballard. 

In the Haven of Rest (206). 

We were wending our way slowly up the road leading from the rail- 
road station. I heard whistling down the valley to the right. It was the 
clear whistling of a few bars of the chorus: 

"I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest, 
I'll sail the wide seas no more!" 

Then silently in my soul I sang on and said, "I like that tune." It 
spoke an experience to which I am glad I am not a stranger. It trans- 
ported me back to the autumn of 1870. It was in Caroline County, Md., 
on a Friday morning, out in the field on my father's farm. 

For weeks I had been exercised about my salvation, seeking peace 
but not finding it. I was there alone, thinking. I believed there were per- 
sons in the community who had found salvation. I said, "If these can be 
saved, why not I ?" Then came the crisis. I had been seeking a blessing, 
and I was assured there was a blessing for me. Then I stopped work for 
awhile, stuck the spade in the ground and said, "Whether the Lord 
blesses me or not, by his help I am going to serve him as long as I live — 
Hallelujah." Then I found salvation. A great, sweet peace filled my soul. 

That Friday morning will never be forgotten while memory lasts. I 
do not know how they count time in heaven, but I do not think eternity 
can obliterate or confuse that day. No wonder I like such hymns as 
these: "O sacred hour, O hallowed spot;" "Where love divine first found 
me;" and "How happy are they who their Saviour obey." 

Some may say — or, at least, think — that experience Is rustic. So it 
may be, but I recall that many of Christ's converts were made under 
the open heavens. 

Some may say it is old-fashioned. I confess it is but It was real. 
There was a covenant entered into. I want to keep my part of it, and I 
am certain God will not fail. I am so impressed with its value that I 
wish millions had an old-fashioned, rustic Friday morning conversion. 

I anchored my soul, and the anchor has been holding. I was not 
deceived. There was no excitement to mislead me. The witnesses were 
the fields around me and the heavens above me, and I have scriptural 
reasons for thinking some of the angels beyond the blue sky were looking 
on and rejoicing. I say again, Hallelujah! May I be faithful until the 



SOUL PEACE 



133 



pearly gates swing open for the sinner saved by grace on that Friday 
morning. — Rev. J. C. Smith. 

The Strength of Confidence (207). 
An explorer In Asia, with the few natives who accompanied him, was 
driven out of his course by adverse circumstances, met by a sandstorm 
that caused great discomfort and delay, and finally the little caravan 
found itself without water. The party struggled on for a time, but one 
after another the weary natives gave up the march as hopeless and 
dropped by the way until only one of the four or five remained. Then 
he, too, became exhausted and could go no farther, and the white man 
pressed on alone. He believed there was water in the direction in which 
he was going, and though he was weak with fatigue and half crazed by 
thirBt, he forced himself forward until at last the blessed sound of a 
running stream reached him. He threw himself down beside the water 
to drink in new life, to bathe his parched face and hands and his swollen 
feet, and to gather strength presently to go back to the help of his com- 
panions. When asked afterwards how it was that he had so much more 
endurance than the natives of the country, he answered that he believed 
the difference to be mental rather than physical. The natives have a 
dreary creed of fate — what is to come will come, and it is useless to bat- 
tle — and this robs them of the hope and courage, the determined will 
that is the heritage of the white man and belongs to the creed of Chris- 
tianity. The explorer had faith In the final outcome of his mission, he 
believed in the water ahead and the possibility of reaching it, and so 
nerved himself to endurance. — Selected. 



XXV. THE JOY OF THE REDEEMED. 



And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with 
songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy 
and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. — Isaiah 35:10. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. S. Martin, preaching on this joy as meaning deliverance from 
the crowning influences of sorrow, used the following treatment: 

L "Sorrow and sighing shall flee away." 1. The sorrow of hodily dis- 
ease shall pass away. 2. The sorrow of dying will pass away. 3. The 
sorrow of bereavement will pass away. 4. The sorrow of poverty will 
flee away. 5. The sorrows caused by the sins of others will flee away. 
6. The sorrows produced by the fear of evil, by dark imaginations, and by 
blighted hopes, shall flee away. 7. The sorrows of this life's illusions and 
delusions shall all pass away. 8. The sorrows of sin will pass away. 9. 
The bitterness of the heart shall flee away. 

II. When shall this be? 1. It shall be to the individual saint when 
his earthly career terminates. 2. To the saints as a body this will be 
realized at the times of the restitution of all things. 

III. By what signs may we be assured that our sorrows will flee 
away? 1. The first sign is personal faith. 2. A second sign is acknowl- 
edged and avowed citizenship in the kingdom of the Saviour. 3. A third 
sign is the fleeing away of sin — the being cleansed from sin. 4. Another 
sign is the present good effect of sorrow. 5. A fifth sign is a living hope 
— hope, born of faith — hope, the child of God's promises — the hope which 
is the anchor of the soul. When these five signs exist — personal faith in 
Jesus, avowed' citizenship in his kingdom, the fleeing away of sin, the 
present good effect of sorrow, and a living hope — then our sorrows shall 
flee away, and our sighings shall forever subside. 

* # * 

1. Joy and gladness are the heritage of the redeemed. 2. Redemp- 
tion illuminates this present life with the peace of pardoned sin; the trust 
of a childlike abiding in Christ, and the hope of a blessed immortality. 
3. Redemption means heaven for all eternity. 

Alexander Maclaren treats this text as follows: We have then here a 
picture of what Christ does for us weary journeyers on life's road. 

I. Who are the travellers? "Redeemed," "ransomed of the Lord." 
Israel had in its past history one great act, under the imagery of which 
all future deliverances were prophesied. Emancipation from bondage ia 
the first thing we all need. 

II. The end of the journey. "They shall come to Zion." It Is one 
great distinctive characteristic and blessedness of the Christian concep- 
tion of the future that It takes away from it all the chilling sense of 
strangeness, arising from Ignorance and lack of experience, and invests 
It with the attraction of being the mother-city of us all. 

III. The Joy of the road. The pilgrims do not plod wearily In silonce. 



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but, like the tribes going up to the feasts, burst out often, as they journey, 
into song. 

IV. The perfecting of joy at last. "They shall obtain joy and glad- 
ness:" but had they not had it on their heads as they marched? Yes: 
but at last they have it in perfect measure and manner. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Conserved Sunshine (208). 
The other night I came from New York on the Fall River line. We 
had hardly left the dock when we broke a bucket of the wheel and 
anchored just off the Battery. The hour was that of greatest illumination 
in the sky-scraper district. It was as if all the constellations had been 
swept into a heap. The vast pyramid of fiery, aerial shadows was flanked, 
on the left by the Colgate Clock in Jersey City, pulsating with intermit- 
tent light, and on the right by the Brooklyn bridge, alive with crawling 
incandescence. 

For two hours I watched the scene with fascinated interest. In im- 
agination I asked the motor-man of one of the trains on the bridge what 
he had to do with it. "I turn on the power, when the conductor rings the 
bell, and gear it to the wheels." The wire said: "I bring the power 
from the dynamo in the laboratory far away." The dynamo said: "I 
comb the power out of the coal." The coal said: "I produce the motion 
in the dynamo because my heat is but a mode of motion." The heat 
said: "I came down long ago and was embalmed in trees and ferns." 
The tree said: "I got all my growth from the sunlight that fell to me 
out of heaven." 

The next day I called upon an elderly woman who had been overtaken 
by sorrow and was full of fear for the morrow of her life. 

"You have not been accustomed to such thoughts as I am bringing 
you today?" She confessed that her life had been little concerned with 
religious experience. It had, however, been prosperous, bright and happy! 

For the benefit of others who might now be drinking in the gladness 
of sunny days I resolved to write out this little parable in order that 
some might be led to think how important it is, if we are to have fruit 
in winter, that we should preserve some in the summer. When dark days 
come, or the night of affliction shuts down, have you some conserved 
sunshine so that you may say with that noble martyr who prayed just 
before being beheaded: "I thank Thee, God, for all the joy I have taken 
In life?"— Selected. 

The Herb of Joy (209). 
Robert Louis Stevenson saw deep into the meaning of religion in the 
parable he gives us of his soul's garden. He presents the picture of his go- 
ing out and conversing with his gardener, and finding one plant every- 
where throughout the garden. It flourished there with the greatest profus- 
ion, and he said to the man, "What is this herb?" "The herb of resigna- 
tion," was the response. "Out with it, man; out with it!" was the reply of 
that courageous soul. "I will have none of it any longer. Replace it with 
the herb of joy, but see it is the flowering sort." The flowering sort: that is 
the secret. Not only a joy that is real and inward, but a joy that so scat- 
ters its fragrance and its beauty that all men may catch the sweetness; 



THE JOY OF THE REDEEMED 



137 



and that to wander inthe soul's garden is a joy and delight, not only to 
the Master, but to all his guests. — God's Garden. 

The Privilege of the Redeemed (210). 

A couple of years ago I went deep-sea fishing on the Maine coast. 
The sea squirmed and rolled and twisted, and some of us began to feel 
very miserable. But at length we came ashore, and then it was the sta- 
bility of things that amazed us, and I could hardly understand the 
strength of the earth beneath my feet. When a man becomes a Christian 
something like that happens. The universe stops squirming and comes 
to rest. It is not that he has become a walking encyclopedia of religion 
with all his questions and problems settled. He only knows that the old- 
time habit of questioning and doubting, which had become almost con- 
stitutional, is strangely, but absolutely, gone. He has reached shore. He 
is at rest. — John Henry Strong, D. D. 

Intimacy With the Unseen (211). 
Paul Is the classic illustration of mastering this world through inti- 
macy with the unseen world. Judged by his sway over Christian history 
and present thought and civilization, he has already heavily mortgaged 
the centuries yet unborn. With gigantic stride he went about the earth, 
because he inhaled the invigorating atmosphere of the unseen and eter- 
nal. His other-worldliness made his this-worldliness intelligent, sane, 
Christlike. For Paul understood what George Meredith has called "the 
rapture of the forward view." A friend said to me: "You haven't seen 
our new house." He had just moved out of his old home into a new one. 
Tender memories still sing of the old but without losing these, he has 
moved into his new house, and is very happy. Last October I told my 
friend goodby at the Hoboken piers. Setting out upon his journey around 
the world, his last words were: "Pray for us." Five weeks later, ten 
thousand miles from home, he fell back into the arms of death as into 
those of a guardian angel. Sad beyond all description was that six weeks' 
journey of his beloved wife and her brother back to friends and 
home. Yet the minister aboard the vessel upon which my friend died 
was never more Chriatlike and Pauline than when he prayed that "his 
sudden death might be to him sudden glory." — Rev. Frederick F. Shannon. 

The Joy We Overlook (212). 
We underrate our happiness because it is so rarely a pure state; it is 
so usually mixed with other things. Was Scott happy or unhappy when 
he was writing "Ivanhoe?" We read he was suffering excruciating an- 
guish when dictating it, and took great quantities of laudanum to allevi- 
ate the pain. Yet who doubtB that with all that there was the highest 
of Joys, the Joy of creative activity? Was not his state that which Marie 
Bashkirtseff describes: "My body weeps and sighs, while my soul in- 
wardly rejoices!" So often, as Browning puts it, our joy Is "three parts 
pain." But the Joy la there, not the less real and precious for that. 
Francis of Asslsl and his companions led the hardest and barest of lives 
Of physical comforts they had none. Yet what was It that led Francis 
to speak of their band as the "Joculatores Domini" — ("the Lord's merry 
men")? A thousand Instances show that It Is not hardship In itself that 



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drives away joy; nor the absence of it that produces it. The late tragic 
event in the Antarctic proves that. Here were men comfortable at home 
in England; with roofs over them, fires to warm them, their meals ready 
for them. And yet, of their own free will they leave it all to face the 
utmost horrors of the uncharted wild; its hungers, its deadly cold. They 
found their happiness in that; or, rather, in what lay behind it; in great 
things aimed at and achieved: great things for knowledge, for their coun- 
try, for their own souls. And amid all the terrors of their situation they 
carried that happiness to their death. So often is it that in our utterest 
extremities the rarest feelings leap to birth; "a joy springs up amid 
distress, a fountain in the wilderness." — J. Brierly. 

God's Gift of Joy. 

Theodore L. Cuyler was visiting Charles H. Spurgeon. After a hard 
day of work and serious discussions, these two mighty men of God went 
into the country together for a holiday. They roamed the fields in high 
spirits, like boys let loose from school, chatting and laughing and free 
from care. Dr. Cuyler had just told a story at which Pastor Spurgeon 
laughed uproariously. Then suddenly he turned to Dr. Cuyler and ex- 
claimed, " Theodore, let's kneel down and thank God for laughter!" And 
there, on the green carpet of grass, under the trees, two of the world's 
greatest men knelt and thanked the dear Lord for the bright and joyous 
gift of laughter. — The Christian Herald. 

The Joy of the Lord (213). 

Shortly after the death of David Livingstone's beloved wife, he 
wrote: "In our intercourse in private there was more than what would 
be thought by some a decorous amount of merriment and play. I said 
to her a few days before her fatal illness, 'We old bodies ought now to 
be more sober and not play so much.' 'Oh, no,' said she, 'you must always 
be as playful as you have always been. I should not like to be as grave 
as some folk I have seen.' So I have always believed it to be the true 
way, to let the head grow wise, but keep the heart ever young and play- 
ful." So across that land of shadows and trials he walked in a great 
joy. The saddest faces and most unhappy countenances I have ever 
seen have sometimes been those in the rich equipages of Fifth Avenue 
or the great boulevard of Newport, for wealth alone finds happiness an 
apple of Sodom with ashes at the core. — Selected. 

Joy and Gladness (214). 
"I hold not my life of any account, as dear unto myself, so that I 
may accomplish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have re- 
ceived from the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God." In 
the excavations of Pompeii an inscription of the early Christian age was 
discovered, "Christian, rejoice in the fire." Sir Thomas More, facing a 
death of ignominy, wrote his wife, "I pray you, dear wife, be merry in 
God." Where else could one be merry in such an hour? — Life in His 
Name. 

The Joy of Heaven Cannot be Overstated (215). 

Once in a wreck on the Atlantic, for twenty-two days we drifted 
about. For twenty of these days "re were in suffering for fear of imme- 



THE JOY OF THE REDEEMED 



139 



dlate death, In storm and darkness, drifting over the wild, wild ocean. 
No sight of the ship, and the food being destroyed in the hold, no fire, 
and lashed to the mast. I roped myself day after day, and slept standing 
against the mast, as the water roared around my feet, and we gave up all 
hope. No more, I thought, shall I see the land of America; no more the 
Stars and Stripes; no more the little home; no more the wife and the 
children. But when on a morning off the coast of Newfoundland (we 
knew not then what land it was), the sun burst through the clouds and 
sent heavenly halos down upon the agitated sea, hope began to rise that 
we might yet be saved. When the dark clouds of smoke from an ap- 
proaching steamer were seen distinctly on the horizon, we all wept. We 
could not talk. If we endeavored to speak a word we burst out crying. 
All cried, sailors, captain and passengers. And when that steamer came 
In sight, and with tears streaming down our faces, we watched its course, 
some one proposed that we sing "Praise God from whom all blessings 
flow." No one could start it. Every attempt to utter a syllable was to 
burst into sobs and cries. The steamer came back and took us in tow 
and took us Into St. John's, and we stepped out upon the shore. All was 
back again, land and houses. We were coming home, and home was still 
here; wife, children, friends, all were ours again. 

Just bo it is with the disappointed life. No matter how great the 
loss, when, out of the storm and the disappointment and despair of this 
life, we come In sight of the heavenly land, then will all be brought back 
again that was worth having in this world. — Russell H. ConwelL 



XXVI. THE SAFEGUARDED LIFE. 



But now thus said the Lord, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have 
called thee by thy name: thou art mine. 

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through 
the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through 
the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle 
upon thee. — Isaiah 43:1, 2. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

I. A charge given — "Fear not." A righteous, godly fear the believer 
may have; but the cowardice of the world, which Is loud to boast, and 
slow to act, and quick to doubt — which is prone to distrust even the 
Almighty and disbelieve the All-true — this he must never know. It 
becomes neither the dignity of his calling nor the faithfulness of his 
God. 

II. A reason assigned — "Thou art Mine." These words were spoken 
to Israel after the flesh, and to them they still remain a covenant of 
peace, sure and steadfast for ever; yet as the relatioaa named — Creator, 
Redeemer, and Saviour — are not peculiar to them, but are enjoyed in the 
same degree by every believing heart, we may safely take to ourselves 
a share in this animating promise. The certainty of the believer's hope 
does not depend on our holding God, but on God's holding us, not on our 
faithfulness to him, but on his faithfulness to us. 

III. A protection promised. This does not consist in any absence 
of trial and danger; the expressions of the text rather imply their pres- 
ence, many in number and various In kind. The protection promised in 
the text consists in the constant presence with the soul of its unseen 
but Almighty Saviour. The preserving hand will never be withdrawn, 
and the grace of the Comforter will strengthen and cheer the soul still 
in its sorest times of difficulty and distress. — Selected. 

* * * 

Rev. Percy Alnsworth, in commenting on this theme, said: Then 
evil Is something that threatens the soul. It is not material, but spirit- 
ual. It is not in our circumstances themselves, but In their effect upon 
the inward life. The same outward conditions of life may be good or 
evil according to their Influence on our character. Good and evil are 
not qualities of things. The world says that health and wealth are good, 
and that sickness and poverty are evil. If that were true the line that 
separates the healthy from the sick, the rich from the poor, would also 
separate the happy from the miserable. But we find Joy and sorrow 
on both sides of that line. We are drawn to look deeper than this for 
our definition of good and evil. We have to make the soul the final 
arbiter amid these conflicting voices. Here we must find the true 
definition of evil. 

God's promlae can fold us in divine comfort and peace, and that 
can do something towards Interpreting for us every coll of difficulty, 
every hour of pain. But If this is to be so we must ourselves think of 



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the soul as God thinks of it. We live in a world where souls are cheap. 
They are bought and sold day by day. It is strange beyond all under- 
standing that the only thing many a man is not afraid of losing is the 
one thing that is really worth anything to him, his soul. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
A New Experience of God (216). 

A few years ago terrible earthquakes swept over South America, 
desolating many regions, destroying vast amounts of property, and mul- 
titudes of human lives. The night of the earthquake one man in its 
path was awakened in the night by the shock. He had been a very rich 
man, but in a few moments all his property was destroyed, his own 
life was in danger, and he was crushed and bruised. He said that in 
the midnight darkness there came to him a new experience of God. He 
readjusted himself, as it were, to the mystery of existence, and new 
faith was born. — Selected. 

The Sympathetic Christ (217). 

In a niche on the right as you enter the Church of St. Mark in 
Florence, there sits a plaster Christ, naked, bleeding, abominable, caged 
behind its grating in a little cairn of votive offerings, tarnished silver 
hollow shapes of hearts like the castings of outworn passions. Lean 
and dark he looks out of his tinsel drift — and the very first time of my 
going there I saw a man kneeling straight up against the foot of the 
niche, his lips pressed to the grating, all his body a-tremble with prayer. 
He was a common man to look at, rough-handed, and tears dropping un- 
wiped on the unshaven jaw. Far up the nave I could see the shake of 
his shoulders as he prayed. 

I was gone, half an hour perhaps, and when I was come again, there 
was the man, kneeling still, his cheek laid to the grating; but he was not 
crying now. His lips moved at times, busy with a blessed name; he 
was pale and at peace. As his cheek was pressed to the cage so might 
it have been to the breast of a woman who had forgiven him, and as I 
watched, the tawdry Christ turned upon me out of his pale eyes the look, 
the inscrutable sad triumph of understanding. I became suddenly aware 
that the niche behind the plaster figure was filled with men's offerings, 
epaulets, sword scabbards, belts — oh, a man's Christ! — From Christ in 
Italy. 

Protection for All (218). 

There is a Persian fable which tells of a young prince who brought 
to his father a nutshell, which, opening with a spring, contained a little 
tent of such ingenious construction that when opened in the nursery 
the children could play under its folds; when spread in the Council 
Chamber the King and his Council could sit beneath its canopy; when 
placed in the courtyard the family and all the servants could gather in 
its shade; when pitched on the plain where the soldiers were encamped 
the whole army could gather within its enclosure; it possessed a quality 
of boundless adaptability and expansiveness. 

Shielded Amid Temptations (219). 
We are not restrained by fear, but the joy of the Lord is our 



THE SAFEGUARDED LIFE 



143 



strength. Our eye is so filled with the sweet luster of the right and 
pure that it turns instinctively from the lurid lights which are gleams 
of hell. 

"Opportunity makes the thief;" and, in truth, opportunity makes 
most sinners and occasions most sins. But the soul dutifully occupied 
is gloriously blind to the sinister opportunity. We have no eye for it, 
no taste for it, it does not appeal to us, we are practically unconscious 
of It. It is perhaps only years after, and when all peril is past, that we 
discover how nigh the kingdom of evil came to us, and how entirely the 
forbidden thing was within our grasp. The dangerous opportunity greed- 
ily seized by the vacant or vicious is actually overlooked by the pure 
in heart, by men and women charmed and satisfied by diviner things. 
It Is not a question of struggle against an enticing bait. The senses 
fail to discern it, the imagination does not picture it, it is not enter- 
tained by the mind, the will is called upon for no decision. Blessed 
blindness! The faithful shall "not see death;" and, delighting in God 
and in his gifts, they frequently fail to discern the devil; they obliterate 
him by the contempt of unconsciousness. "Hold thou me up, and I shall 
be safe." Satisfy me with chaste delights; let me "have respect unto 
thy statutes continually." — Watkinson. 

"Through the Waters" (220). 

The village of Da Sin Tau is the home of the Rev. Ding LI May 
(Ting Li Mei), one of the most able and consecrated native preachers 
In the empire. And in the midst of flood conditions exceeding in dura- 
tion and virulence anything for fifty years, his village has had a deliv- 
erance little short of miraculous. 

For four months It rained, almost daily. At last the rich, flat soil 
of a large part of our field became sheets of mud. Every river of China 
to the extent of its unregulated power — not merely the Yellow River — 
is "China's Sorrow." When the annual summer rains begin, it spreads 
desolation along its treeless length. As the river waxes II hal (fierce) 
in its swelling, It overflows its banks, attacks the foundations of the 
mud houses, sucks them Into its ravening maw, leaving whole villages 
broken and spent — toppled Into ruins. 

Siao Kou Hwoa, the river that flows past the Rev. Mr. Ding's vil- 
lage, raved this year without let or hindrance — except in one instance: 
It "opened Its mouth," as the Chinese say (that is, broke its banks), 
eighteen times within six miles of Da Sin Tau, but never harmed this 
place. Villages everywhere on both banks were overwhelmed. And 
villages In this level region are bo thick that by merely turning one's 
head from right to left one can count from thirty to sixty of them. 

The river burled Itself with groat fury against seventy II of railroad 
embankment, strewing it all over the peasants' farming plots, and 
changed its course — a trick of Chinese rivers. In the process It broke 
the German bridges, culverts and river masonry, wrecking the best work 
that the foreign engineers had done — all near Da Sin Tau; but that 
village was sparfd. Directly across from Da Sin Tau the river crept 
far out of its course to eat Into a big village located on ground higher 
than Da Sin Tau, which, like the towns of Holland, lies snugly behind 
Its dyke, a few yards from the water, and lower than ItB surface. 



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How can such a deliverance be explained? Is it nothing that, in the 
midst of heathenism, this village has four generations of Christians, 
and its own church building, pastor, evangelist, and Bible Woman? Also 
our Girls' Middle School, the hope and prayer-focus of many a Christian 
family, is there. This Ding clan has conspicuously and signally stood 
for the Lord in the face of great opposition, loss, and persecution. They 
have had marked deliverances before, which have bulwarked their faith, 
and which are now to them earnests of God's grace in these troublous 
days of flood, famine, pestilence, and civil war. — Charles E. Scott. 

Our Refuge (221). 

The 46th Psalm, "God is our refuge and strength," is the basis of 
the battle-hymn of Luther. "A strong tower is our God." The 68th 
was known among the Huguenots as the "Song of Battles." Savonarola 
chanted it as he marched to the most precious pyre ever lighted in 
Florence. After the victory of Dunbar, Cromwell and his army sung 
the 117th Psalm, "O praise the Lord, all ye nations; praise him, all ye 
people." No man knows what a great part the Psalms have played in 
the lives of men. These poems, which reflect every praiseworthy human 
emotion, have associated themselves, like the rain and the sunlight, 
with all sorts and conditions of men, women and children. The peni- 
tential groanings of the sixth Psalm, "O Lord, rebuke me not in thine 
anger," have been sobbed out by Catherine de Medici, John Calvin, and 
Mrs. Carlyle. It might be properly called the "Universal Psalm of the 
Penitent." — The Youth's Companion. 

God's Father-Heart (222). 

From the fading of the meanest flower that grows, to the cross, 
with its outstretched arms against the background of the Syrian sky, 
the deepest voices in nature and in life whisper that God is love. When 
that truth, struggling up through doubt and difficulty as a sun struggles 
up through cloud and morning mist, breaks at last upon a soul, a day has 
dawned that no night will ever darken. The light has come and it has 
come forever. Here we find the secret of Browning's confident and 
triumphant song. "The sun will pierce the darkest clcud earth ever 
stretched;" here we find the secret to the peace of the ancient saint: 
"Tho he slay me yet will I trust in him;" here we find the open door 
to the victorious faith that overcomes the world. 

A great truth can never become exclusively a private possession. 
A great privilege, in the economy of God, imposes a great responsibility. 
You recall the story of Peter and the vision that came to him on the 
house-top. While meditating on its meaning he hears some one knock- 
ing at the door below. The man who is knocking is seeking the very 
truth that the vision had brought to Peter. We may rejoice in the pos- 
session of the great glad truth of which this morning we have been 
speaking, but we can not claim it as all our own. Even while we medi- 
tate on its far-reaching significance do we not hear at our door the 
knocking of some burdened or some defeated life that needs it? Is 
there no man whom you know, who is crushed by the weight of a 
wasted past; no woman groping in the shadows because some hope has 
gone down like a sun, who is waiting to hear from your lips the message 
that behind the world's defeats and the world's tears is Almighty Love? 



XXVII. THE BLESSED RESULTS OF 
OBEDIENCE. 

"Oh that thou hadst hearkened unto my commandments; then had thy 
peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the 
sea." — Isaiah 48:18. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

On "The Blessedness of Obedience," Rev. Dr. G. R. Miller says: 
God emphasizes the importance of an unbroken, progressive life of obe- 
dience to the end. He gives notice that such life is the true and de- 
cisive test of loyalty to him. He impliedly says to all his servants, 
Having engaged with me, I assign you to life service. I make no pro- 
vision for leave of absence, I grant no vacations; but I give assurance 
of profits to all who serve faithfully — profits more than equivalent for 
the service rendered. 

* * * 

Rev. S. M. Hamilton, D.D., says: Here we find the true test of 
spiritual life. We often torture ourselves with questions like these, 
"Am I indeed a Christian? Do I really love Jesus?" We fear that our 
feelings for him have not the warmth and rapture that should be found 
in his followers. But keeping his commandments is the only trust- 
worthy evidence of love. Let us not be disheartened because we know 
little of the inward raptures which some other Christians enjoy. If we 
are striving for Christ's sake to do the good and right unto all men, 
we really love him who "went about doing good." If we are striving 
for Christ's sake to forgive our persecutors and slanderers, we really 
love him who prayed on the cross, "Father, forgive them, they know 
not what they do." An obedient life is the sure token of a loving heart. 

How precious and inspiring are the privileges here assured to those 
who obey. They become in a special sense the beloved of the Father. 
They are linked to him by the tenderest ties. They enjoy continual 
and increasing revelations of the glory and power and beauty of Christ. 

* * * 

In preaching on "The Highly Multiplying Power of Obedience," 
IliBhop William F. McDowell, D.D., said: 

I. First obedience to Cod is man's only way of lifting his own life 
to Its highest levels of possibility. There is such a thing as a man's 
lift on his own life; there Is such a thing as a man's own upward push 
on his own life that puts his life up to such a level as makes It possible 
for God to do something with It. 

II. In the second place, obedience to the highest puts life in har- 
mony with those eternal forces that make for permanence and enlarge- 
ment. It Is the house divided that cannot stand. It is the seed implanted 
that does not multiply. It is th*"' H*'f'd planted that links itself with all tho 
forces of earth and air and sky, growth and life and brings, thirty, 
sixty, an hundred fold. It Is the single eye that sees. It is the one 
serving one master and not two for whom the stars fight in their courses. 



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You can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. Everything co- 
operates with the obedient man. Forces of earth, forces of air, forces 
of sky, forces of right, forces of truth, forces of mercy, forces of love, 
forces of goodness all co-operate with the obedient life. 

III. I remark, in the third place, that obedience to God puts life 
into harmony with God so that he can multiply life. It is not a bit of 
poetry that declares one shall chase a thousand. That is a bit of truth. 
It is not a bit of fiction that makes a little larger statement, that two 
shall put ten thousand to flight. That is one of the minor scientific facts 
of human history. I should say that three could put an unnumbered 
host to flight, if they were in right relations with God himself. 

There is the story of the lad with the five little loaves and the 
two little bits of fish, who heard the word, "Bring them hither to me," 
and walked up and put them into the hands of one who made no bread 
for himself after he had fasted forty days, but made bread in quan- 
tities for others who had been without food for some hours. The lad 
saw that marvelous multiplication of his small resources so that the 
throngs were fed and there was immeasurably more at the end than 
there was at the beginning. Some of you are wondering what you can 
do with your lives to make them tell to the greatest possible advantage. 
Put them in the hands of Jesus Christ. In your hands there is not 
enough for you to feed yourself with; but in his hands there is enough 
to feed the world. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

"Mind the Highest Boss" (224). 

Sometimes it takes a boy to put things plainly and tersely. I once 
heard from the lips of a boy one of the most sensible pieces of advice 
that I ever heard from any one. A question arose one day as to which 
of two orders should be obeyed, a certain person having received from 
two in authority slightly different instructions in regard to some work 
to be done. The matter was of no importance, and it was merely in 
fun that this perplexed person hesitated between the two orders. 

But the boy solved the problem, and he could not have done better 
if it had been the most serious matter in the world. 

"Mind the highest boss," he called out, hearty of voice and lusty 
of lung. "Mind the highest boss and you'll always keep out of trouble." 
— The Alabama Baptist. 

Obedience the Test of Faith (225). 

A slave obeys, not because he wishes to, but because he must; but 
even he believes or knows that his master has power over him, and 
so he yields. The soldier obeys his commanding officer because it is his 
duty, and, death if he rebels; but some generals have aroused such en- 
thusiastic confidence in the breasts of their soldiers that they have 
followed them because they believed in them. General Sherman said 
that he could liken the faith that soldiers had in General Grant only 
to the faith that Christians had in their Saviour. When he ordered, 
they obeyed; they liked to do it. 

The test of a Christian's faith in Christ is his readiness to obey 



THE BLESSED RESULTS OF OBEDIENCE 



147 



him. When one has the faith in Christ that leads him to do his will, 
he has faith. This is the convincing test. — Selected. 

The Sure Foundation (226). 

The Spreckels Building on Market street, San Francisco, is eighteen 
stories high. It is a tall, slender, towerlike structure, square in form and 
apparently without sufficient base for a building of such height. When 
the great earthquake of 1906 occurred and the whole surface of the 
earth along the line of the "Portola Fault" was in a tremor, it was 
estimated by scientific men that the swaying of the tall Spreckels Build- 
ing carried the center of gravity beyond the base line many times during 
those fearful forty-eight seconds. 

But when the building was erected the wise builder "dug deep and 
laid the foundations" aright. The building has a steel frame and the 
frame does not rest upon the loose sand which underlies so much of 
San Francisco — the architect pierced through the loose material at the 
surface and anchored the steel frame in great wells blasted from the 
solid rock and afterward filled in around the bases of the steel frame 
with cement. When the eighteenth of April came, testing every man's 
work of what sort it was, the huge weight of the swaying building was 
held in place because It was founded upon a rock. It gripped that which 
was abiding. — Rev. Chas. R. Brown, D.D. 

Obedience the Organ of Spiritual Knowledge (227). 

Frederic Robertson gave to one of the greatest sermons of the last 
century the title "Obedience the Organ of Spiritual Knowledge." The 
title not only describes the message the sermon contains, but by con- 
trast calls up the numerous other ways by which men seek spiritual 
advancement. Anybody can think of obedience as a means of spiritual 
discipline, but for just the reason that we have heard of it all our lives 
and seem to know it so well we are all tempted to look for some more 
romantic path to spiritual knowledge. — Selected. 

Doing (228). 

Hearing and seeing and feeling which find no expression in action 
become a kind of mental and spiritual dissipation no more honorable than 
physical dissipation through the use of stimulants or opiates. The great 
truth yields its value only as it flndB utterance in terms of life. "Whoso 
looketh Into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, he being 
not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be bleBsed 
In his deed." — Selected. 

The Condition of Life Harmony (229). 

In making an organ pipe the fixed laws of acoustics have to be ob- 
served. You cannot make an organ pipe any length you like; unless 
the relation between the length of the vibration it produces and the 
position of the so-called nodes and loops of the pipe Is observed, you 
will get no true note at all, but only a, hideous noise. But when the 
mathematical law which prevails In the world of sound Is observed, 
the pipe gives forth Its clear and rich tone. 

So we cannot get anything out of our lives that Bhall bo beautiful 



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and fine by willfully trying to force life to be what we should like to 
have it to be. The condition of life-harmony is surrender to law, obe- 
dience to the will of God. When we are at one with God, God can 
speak in us and through us. 

In Dante's vision of heaven he hears the ethereal choir chanting 
theBe sublime words: "In his will Is our peace." — Rev. D. G. Burrell, D.D, 



XXVIII. THE LAMB OF GOD. 



"Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was 
wounded for our transgressions, etc." — Isa. 53:4-6. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

L The nature of Christ's atonement. 1. The heart of it is in the 
fact that, in some way, Christ took our place in bearing the penalty of 
sins. 2. Observe the connection between this passage and 1 Pet. 2:24; 
3. Show how this thought is brought out in many hymns, such as: 

"Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?" 

and 

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me." 

It The purpose of Christ's bearing our sins. 1. That we might die 
unto sins. Explain the meaning. Show the relation to the pardon of 
sins and to the desire to commit sin. 2. That we might live unto right- 
eousness. This is a life that seeks to be perfectly conformed to God's 
law and wish — the only life worth living. This is made possible by 
Christ's death for us. — Selected. 

* * * 

This was Spurgeon's favorite theme. In preaching on it on one 
occasion he said: The grandest doctrine of the Word of God to my 
mind is the doctrine of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. I will contend 
for every letter of truth, but if I must give up something, I will hold 
tenaciously to this: "Without shedding of blood there is no remission 
of sin;" "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." 

As to this doctrine of sacrifice — to put it plainly, this truth of sub- 
stitution — Christ Jesus was made sin for us, though he knew no sin, 
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. When God 
the Holy Ghost hd you to receive this fact, did it not satisfy the intense 
craving of your spirit? Did you ever know what perfect rest about sin 
was till you saw it laid upon Christ, carried away by Christ up to the 
tree, borne by him upon the tree, and there made an end of by the 
Bhedding of his precious blood? 

Would anything short of that, do you think, content you now? I 
am sure It would not. There Is a thirst in the human heart that nothing 
can ever satisfy, but "God so loved the world, that he gave his only be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever belleveth on him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life." 

* * * 

Archdeacon Hannah adopted the following treatment of this Bubject 
In one of his Bcrmons: 

I. When Christ Innity wan first proclaimed, »he world wafl well- 
nigh lost. In sin. The noblest cultivation, and the most perfect art, 
and a sk 11 1 in law and government which has never been surpassed, 
were unhappily found to be compatible with a baseness of moral degra- 
dation, the very language of which, by God's mercy, has now becomo 
obsolete and unknown. Now the Gospel revelation rests upon the prin- 



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ciple that the removal of the weight and stain of moral evil was the 
first requisite for the restoration of a higher life; and that no cure 
could be found for the deeply-seated mischief, except through the re- 
newed contact of God himself with human nature — God himself conde- 
scending to assume that nature, with the express purpose of winning 
back the world to purity and holiness. Christ came, not only to take 
up man's nature, and to show forth the noblest example of its capaci- 
ties, but, more than this, by a still more marvellous condescension, he 
came to die for our sins. 

II. We must not rest satisfied, then, with the negative position, 
that the power of sin has been destroyed. It was the further object of 
the work of Christ that a higher life might be created through faith 
in his name. We must pass on from the removal of the hindrances by 
which man was fettered, to recognize the larger capabilities that were 
infused through the regenerate life. By the atonement of Christ the 
strength of sin was virtually broken; but the way was thereby opened 
for the development of nobler freedom. 

III. Our estimate of the measure in which this ideal is fulfilled must 
be formed from the completeness with which these various duties are 
acknowledged and provided for; completeness being a fair and reason- 
able test of any theory of life and conduct. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. P. T. Forsyth said: Mere rationalism, apart from the 
Christian revelation, is bound to end, where historically it has ended, 
in agnosticism, or in a monism which comes to much the same thing 
in practice. Without Christ we have no God in the end. And mere 
spiritualism, or trust in the inner light detached from the historic 
Word, destroys revelation in other ways. It swallows it up in the fogs, 
bogs and flows of mere subjectivity. No religion is possible without a 
revelation, and no Christian revelation is permanently possible without 
a historic redemption. Religion without a revelation is mere subjective 
religiosity; and revelation which is not redemption is mere illumination, 
a mere branch of spiritual culture. It is its theology that distinguishes 
Christianity both from the world and from all other religions. Chris- 
tianity is Christianity by the redemption which distinguishes it histor- 
ically from mere manifestation, mentally from mere illumination, and 
morally from mere amelioration. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Remembering Calvary (230). 

In one of the old-fashioned mansions in the United States, there is 
still to be seen a brass-bound clock upon the staircase landing with the 
hands fixed at the minute and hour when Washington died. The grand- 
father of the present owner was a pall-bearer at the funeral of the great 
republican, and set the hands where they have ever since remained. 

Vicarious Suffering (231). 
Schamyl, a religious leader and patriot amongst a people gathered 
around the foot of the Caucasus, found a great deal of bribery and 
forgery amongst his people, and he decreed that the first one found 
guilty must suffer a hundred lashes. The first one convicted was his 



THE LAMB OF GOD 



151 



own mother. He locked himself up for a day in prayer, and at last 
came forward and told the executioner that the punishment must be 
inflicted. His mother was brought forward, and when five lashes had 
been administered he sprang forward and cried, "Halt!" and took the 
other ninety-five upon his own bared back. Righteousness must be vin- 
dicated. How is God to vindicate righteousness while he loves man? 
The answer to that is the coming of Jesus Christ. The sacrifice of 
Christ was the vindication of the righteousness of God. — John Douglass 
Adam. 

"He Saved Us" (232). 
In a little village in Germany there standa a plain marble shaft in 
the central square. On it is the name, Heinrich Hartman, the sentence, 
"He saved us," and under it the names of twelve children. He was a 
blacksmith, a great favorite of the children. One day as the twelve 
came down the road, a mad dog came rushing toward them. The black- 
smith saw it, and taking an iron bar ran out to stop it. He killed the 
dog, but not before it had bitten him. The children were safe, but the 
man died in awful agonies. Though many years have passed, still their 
children and children's children decorate the monument. Now Christ 
died for you and me; and he died not because we loved him, but be- 
cause he loved us, and to show how anxious he is to have us love him. 
— Selected. 

The Cross at the Center (233). 
There 1b a certain town in Europe, which has, in its center, a lofty 
marble building in the form of a cross. All the streets of this town 
radiate from this building, and, at whatever point you pause in walking 
through them, if you look back, you get a view of the cruciform pile 
in the midst. Denominations should be like the streets of this town. 
Every creed should radiate from the Cross of Christ, every avenue of 
service partake of its sacrificial love, and every member of every church 
draw his power from the dear and blessed One whose death upon that 
cross redeemed us all. This is the ideal. God help us in our efforts to 
live up to it. 

"In the Cross of Christ I Glory" (234). 

When the hardy Portuguese colonists, following the trail of the ex- 
ploring Vasco da Gama, first settled Macao on the coast of South China, 
one of the early bulldingB they erected was a massive cathedral on a 
hill crest with a splendid approach of stone steps. But a violent China 
Sea typhoon proved too severe a test for even the ugly masslveness of 
the great building, and three centuries ago the cathedral fell, all save 
the front wall. It has never been rebuilt, and that ponderous facade 
has stood as a sort of mournful monument ever since. On the top of 
this facade standB a great bronze cross, clean cut against the sky, defy- 
ing rain and lightning and typhoon. It Is a striking thing to see; and 
when Sir John Bowring — then governor of Hongkong — visited Macao 
In 1825, he was Impressed by that cross surmounting the ruined church. 

The significance of that mighty cross as seen by this man of God 
inspired the famous hymn, "In the Cross of Christ I Glory, Towering 
O'er the Wrecks of Time." Since that day thousands of vleltors havo 
looked upon the ruin, and the cross that glorifies the ruin; somo with In- 



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difference, some with curiosity, some with, reverence, but few have 
known that the splendid hymn sung by the world-circling Church of 
God for nearly ninety years, was born in the mind of the British Gov- 
ernor of Hongkong by the sight of the same cross that stands today 
"towering o'er the wrecks of time." As you sing this hymn, think of a 
great rumed wall on a misty hill-top; birds nesting on its hideous gar- 
goyles, the sea and the mountains and the sky of China seen through 
its gaping doors and windows, and over all the Cross, changing desola- 
tion to majesty. 

Sir John has gone to taste those "joys that through all time abide," 
but his hymn remains; the builders of that distant cathedral are long 
since forgotten, but the cross they reared there in memory of the Cru- 
cified One remains. And time has seen mightier wrecks than a cathe- 
dral. The monarchy that built it has gone; the priesthood that burned 
incense within it has been driven from the colony forever; and the 
iron dynasty that ruled those Chinese hills beyond the bay has crumbled 
as did the church of stone. But the cross, it stands. And the light 
of that sacred story that gathers round the sublime head of the cross 
is bringing liberty and light and life to Portuguese and Chinese; and 
in these days of ours we begin to catch the vision of that radiant day 
when all men shall know the story of the Cross and from the heart 
shall worship the Christ of the Cross and of the Throne. — Rev. Francis 
E. Wilber. 

A Hero's Sacrifice (235). 

The following is a true story, the record of which is preserved in 
the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The tower of St. Leonard's Church, 
Bridgenorth, was left open, and two boys, wandering in, were tempted 
to mount up into the upper part and scramble from beam to beam. 
All at once a joist gave way. The beam on which they were standing 
became displaced. The elder boy had just time to grasp it when fall- 
ing, while the younger, slipping over his body, caught hold of his com- 
rade's legs. In this fearful position the poor lads hung, crying vainly 
for help, for no one was near. At length the boy clinging to the beam 
became exhausted. He could no longer support the double weight. He 
called out to the lad below that they were both "done for." "Could you 
save yourself if I were to loose my hold of you?" replied the younger 
lad. "I think I could," returned the elder boy. "Then good-bye, and 
God bless you!" cried the little fellow, loosing his hold. Another second 
and he was dashed to pieces on the stone floor below, as his companion 
clambered to a place of safety. — Sunday School Chronicle. 

Nothing Less Would Do (236). 

A minister who was practically a Unitarian in his belief and preach- 
ing was called in to see a poor sinful woman who was dying. He told 
her of the beautiful life, the loving ministries, and the noble example of 
Jesus. He urged her to follow him, but she shook her head hopelessly, 
saying: "That's not for the like o' me; I'm a sinful woman, and I'm 
dying." "It flashed upon me," said the preacher, "that I had no message 
of help and hope for that dying woman, and like lightning I leaped in 
mind and heart back to the gospel my mother taught me. I told her of 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, dying on the cross that such as she might 



THE LAMB OF GOD 



153 



be saved; of his blood poured out for the remission of sins, and all the 
blessed truths of the old, old story, and she professed saving faith in the 
'Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.' " 

The Atoning Death (237). 
If I go into a sickroom where a man is dying, and as his doctor say: 
"Just wait a moment," and go out and bring in a great, healthy man, 
and, pointing to him, say: "You are dying, but if you live, just be like 
this man," the sick man would feebly cry: "Oh, doctor, don't mock me, 
but get me well and then I will take this man for my model." If I 
should then sit down and read him the laws of health and tell him, 
if he would be strong and well, he must observe these, again he would 
plead: "Doctor, please get me well, and then I will try to observe 
those beautiful teachings, but I can't do anything until you make me 
well." So when I am in the humiliation and helplessness where a 
sense of my sin puts me, the thing above all else I don't want is an 
example. After I am saved I will need that. While I am stung through 
and through with the experience of sin, to preach to me of the beautiful 
teaching of Christ is but to aggravate the sore in my soul. I then 
want a Saviour, not an example; I want salvation, not rebuke. I want 
a gospel brought down to the level of my hopelessness. I want a 
Saviour with the print of the nails in his hands and of the wound in his 
Bide— John B. Worrell, D.D. 

One for Many (238). 
During a plague in Marseilles, the physicians decided that nothing 
could be done to save the people, unless a victim could be dissected, and 
the nature of the disease learned. But who would this be? Dr. Guyon 
rose and said he would do it. He wrote his will, bade his family fare- 
well, entered the hospital, made the dissection and examination, wrote 
out the results, and in a few hours was dead. But now the physicians 
could treat this disease, and the plague waB stayed. That was done in 
the Bpirlt of ChrlBt. 



XXIX. THE GREAT INVITATION. 



"Ho, every one that thlrsteth, come ye to the waters. . . . Come, buy 
wine and milk, without money and without price." — Isa. 55:1. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. John T. McFarland, D.D., in speaking of Christ's attitude 
towards sinners, said: 

How very difficult it is for us to catch the spirit of Jesus toward 
sinners — difficult, indeed, for us to understand what his spirit was. 

L There was in him no morbid, curious interest in sin. That 
kind of interest, in some degree, is in most people. Moral monstrosities 
have a sort of fascination for many minds. That gives drawing power to 
the "Chamber of Horrors," in which a show is made of crime and crim- 
inals. That is why people go "Blumming" in the criminal districts of 
great cities. We are curious to look on moral abnormalities. There 
was nothing of that in Jesus. We can not think of him looking upon 
the "seamy side of life" as a curious spectacle. 

II. Jesus did not shrink from sinners. That disposition is more 
difficult for us to overcome than a morbid curiosity in sin. We 
have a repugnance for sinners of the grosser types. We recoil from the 
touch of a murderer's hand, we experience a loathing for the morally 
vile that makes our flesh creep if we come in contact with them. There 
is no evidence that Jesus had any such feelings. He accepted invita- 
tions to dine with publicans and sinners, and sat down among them 
with perfect ease. A Pharisee's gorge would have risen at it. It was 
something that Pharisees could not understand in Jesus. They Inferred 
that he was himself a sinner; else he could not have endured the com- 
pany of sinners. Or, as In the case of the woman, in the house of 
Simon, who washed Christ's feet with her tears, they concluded that he 
did not know her character, and so could not be a prophet. But Jesus 
never recoiled from any sinner. He feared no contamination from the 
touch of any human being. There was this moral significance in the 
way he dealt with the physically diseased. Almost invariably he put 
forth his hand and touched those whom he healed, even though they 
were lepers, whom all men loathed and shunned. Bodily maladies, in 
Christ's sight, were always types of spiritual disease. How can wa 
explain this spirit of Christ? Only partially, perhaps, if at all. But 
he understood sin as we do not. He evidently did not view certain 
forms of sin as odious and loathsome and other forms as tolerable. 

III. His spirit toward sinners was always benevolent. Love drew him 
toward them. His mission In the world was to them. Disgust and re- 
pugnance and loathing would have driven him from them. He pitied 
sinners as he pitied sick folks; and pity and sympathy, not aversion 
and contempt, bring sinners to repentance. And Jesus had faith In the 
possibilities In sinners. Underneath what they were he saw what they 
were capable of becoming. The Pharisee saw in Magdalene the pol- 
luted woman; Jesus saw in her the lustrous salnL 



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I. The ground of forgiveness. "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son 
cleanseth from all sin." No forgiveness except at the cross. The life 
surrendered at Calvary atones for sin, brings purity and peace. 

II. The condition of forgiveness. "Every one that setteth his heart 
to seek God," or, "him that setteth his whole heart." Truly a fault is 
not effaced because we reproach ourselves with it; it is effaced only 
when we set our whole heart to seek the Divine mercy and strength. 

III. The sign of forgiveness. The proof of pardon is the inspira- 
tion that cures us of our old sins. "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; 
who healeth all thy diseases." The proof of the former is found in the 
latter. 

IV. The blessedness of forgiveness. Brass bands are enough to ex- 
press earthly joy; all the golden bands of heaven are insufficient to 
express the gladness of those whose sin is forgiven, whose iniquity is 
covered. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

God Seeking Man (239). 

Almost all the ethnic faiths are concerned with the quest of man 
after God. When one turns to Christianity, this is changed. It is not 
man seeking God but God seeking man. It begins with God being born 
into our humanity through Christ, that he might find it and draw it to 
himself. "I am come to seek and to save that which is lost." "Ye have 
not chosen me, but I have chosen you." "Behold, I stand at the door 
and knock!" The gospel message is not that man can find God if he 
will only seek. It is that God seeks man. — Rev. Frederick Lynch. 

A Great Text (240). 

A young man felt "called to preach," and gave out his text, "Be- 
hold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." He 
could get no farther; all that he intended to say went from him, and all 
that he could do was to repeat the above Scripture, which he did again 
and again, with quivering lip, in trembling tones, and the tears run- 
ning down his cheeks. At last he managed to say, "Friends, I thought 
I could preach, but I can not. Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh 
away the sin of the world? " The Holy Spirit so carried that Scripture 
home that many in that congregation were moved to tears, and all felt 
the power of the truth. — Selected. 

Come (241). 

An interested listener said to Mr. Moody, "One might think that the 
word 'Come' was your pet text." "I have two; one is 'Come* and the 
other is 'Go,' " was his answer. "Come for cleansing and acceptance. 
Go into service. Go and get others to come." 

Free Grace (242). 

The governor of a State would, no doubt, be glad to set free every 
condemned man in the penitentiary, but he dare not. It would cost too 
much. Such mercy would destroy the peace of the State and render 
government of none effect. 

God does not disregard justice, and yet he is merciful. His mercy 
is full and free, but it cost more than we can think. His mercy burst 



THE GREAT INVITATION 



167 



through every harrier and reached the lowest sinner, "God so loved the 
world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
him should not perish, but have everlasting life." — Selected. 

Another Chance (243). 
What will you say to the man who has failed in moral life? 
Answer him as Napoleon is said to have answered one of his marshals. 
The marshal rode up and said, "General, I fear the battle is lost." 
Napoleon coolly looked at his watch and replied: "Time for another 
battle. Summon the army to a fresh charge." — The Optimist's Good 
Night. 

How to Come (244). 
Samuel H. Hadley of the Water Street Mission in New York, said 
that one day after a long debauch, and with several indictments for 
crime threatening him, he found himself sitting on the top of a liquor 
barrel in a saloon. In his dazed condition he fell into a mood almost 
of despair. All at once, however, there came floating to his brain a re- 
membrance of the Cross of Calvary, and the Saviour who hung on it. 
He felt strangely roused to try and go to that cross. Suiting his action 
to his materialized thought he climbed down from the barrel to "go" 
as he said "to the cross." But as he did so, he fell headlong to the 
floor. "But," said Mr. Hadley, "I fell toward the cross, and Jesus picked 
me up." 

Room for Failures (245). 
"His great establishment is made up of failures," laughed a man 
who was describing one of the largest and most successful mercantile 
establishments in a great city. "That is, it is made up of men who 
have started in business for themselves and failed, though they are 
experts in their own particular lines. Knowing how to manage a special 
line of work is one thing, and knowing how to manage all the details 
of a business is quite another." And so this man with the fine business 
ability has gathered to his aid these others, each an adept in his own 
department, and out of the combination has come the great mercantile 
house that Is known throughout the nation. The failures, fitted Into 
their proper places, become a success. Something of that kind 1b true 
in the universe-wide enterprise that the Creator holds in hiB hands. — 
Forward. 

Call of the Larger Life (246). 

Rev. John McNeill tells of a friend who had kept an eagle confined 
in a hen-house. He caught it when it was young, and had brought It up, 
as far as he could, like a domestic fowl. Having to leave the country 
he decided that he would Bet the eagle free. He opened the place in 
which it had been kept, and brought it to the back yard. How the 
eagle was astonished! It walked about, feeling as if this were rather 
bigger than its ordinary run; but that was all. The man was disap- 
pointed, and, taking the big bird In his arms, he lifted it and set it up 
on his garden wall. It turned and looked down at him! The sun had 
been obscured behind a cloud, but Just then the cloud passed away, and 
the bright, warm bcamB poured out. The eagle lifted its eyes. Pulling 
Itself up, It lifted one wing and Btretched it out— and then lifted the 



158 



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other wing — and outstretched it. Then it gave a scream, and soon 
was a vanishing speck away in the blue of heaven. The eagle had had 
no choice of its home; hut we have. Living in a hen-house when we 
might soar in the heavenly places! Living in a hovel when we might 
rule from a palace! Let us seek a spirit of wisdom and revelation in 
the knowledge of Christ, that we may know what is the riches of the 
glory of his inheritance in the saints. — Pacific Baptist. 

Hope for the Hopeless (247). 

The brother of Whitefield, the great evangelist, was deeply despon- 
dent at times, and felt his utter worthlessness and helplessness. On 
such an occasion Lady Huntingdon availed herself of the opportunity 
to speak with him about his soul's salvation, and tried to induce him to 
come to Christ. To all her pleas he answered, "Oh, it is of no use! 
I. am lost! I am lost!" "Thank God for that!" said she. "Why?" 
asked the man in astonishment. "Because," said Lady Huntingdon. 
"Christ came to save the lost, and if you are lost, he is just the ona 
that can save you." — The Classmate. 

The Voice of Conscience (248). 

Conscience has a voice and can speak. A thousand books have 
been written to explain this voice, but the sum of them all is, that 
conscience is the whisper of God in the soul of man. It is as if the 
youth ever heard one bidding him remember the all-seeing eye, the all- 
hearing ear, and the books of judgment that recall all deeds. For paid 
does not more certainly follow a wound than does conscience condemn 
a wrong. God hath not left himself without a witness in any human 
heart. If so-called heathen peoples have no temple, nor teacher, nor 
book, day by day and night by night, through all the rolling years, they 
do have the voice of conscience. In the hour of temptation the voice 
whispers warning and alarm, in the hour of yielding and fall, con- 
science brings condemnation and stern punishment. "The evil doer 
needs no dungeon, no scourge, no executioner's sword; for conscience, 
that dread avenger, is ever with him." If he persists, and scoffs at 
everything that makes for love, conscience still pleads, but, alas, the 
time will come when conscience will be seared by sin as by a red-hot 
iron. So long as there is the faintest whisper, there is hope. If thou 
dost but catch the tremor of the whispered note of reproof, then thank 
God. Hope is still yours, and still there is room and opportunity. Re- 
member that when conscience speaks, it is God speaking. If you 
go away having made no vows to God, having postponed your accept- 
ance of him, having kept silence, all the warnings of conscience, all the 
pleas of the whisper of God in the soul of man, will have been for 
naught. And when conscience speaks for the last time, this will be her 
word, "It has all been in vain." — Hillis. 



XXX. THE DIVINE GUARANTEE. 



So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not 
return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and 
it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. — Isa. 55:11. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
Rev. Dr. Josiah Sibley, in preaching on God in history, said: 
The purposes of God are interwoven with the records of human 
history. 

All Industrial life, all social organizations, all political systems, 
ethical movements, all intellectual achievements are pulsing witnesses 
to the struggle of mankind to the one far-off divine event toward which 
the whole creation moves. Time and again trivial events, lone men 
turn the destiny of nations, the movements of society. The deeply pon- 
dering men have seen in these events the guiding hand of God. That 
was the daring conception of the old Hebrew prophet in the time of 
Israel's exile. Seeing the all-powerful Cyrus establish a new kingdom, 
he saw in him the unwitting instrument of God in restoring his people 
to their native land. So a little later might the same prophet tongue 
have greeted the conquering Alexander as the chosen of God, decreeing 
that not Oriental despotism and sluggishness, but Western individual- 
ism and alertness should settle the destiny of Europe. 

Again and again the same principle illustrates itself in the unroll- 
ing of the centuries. At critical moments in unsuspected manner is 
God seen girding the affairs of men. We cannot wonder that Charles 
Kingsley said, when contemplating the remarkable movement of the 
wild tribes of Europe against Rome: "And now, gentlemen, was this 
vast campaign fought without a general? If Trafalgar could not be won 
without the mind of a Nelson, or Waterloo without the mind of a Wel- 
lington, was there no one to lead these invincible armies on whose suc- 
cess depended the future of the whole human race? Did no one marshal 
them in that Impregnable convex form from the Euxine in the North 
Sea? No one to guide them to the great strategic centers of the Black 
Forest and Trieste? No one to cause them — blind barbarians without 
maps or science — to follow those rules of war without which victory in 
protracted struggle Is impossible; and by the pressure of the Huns be- 
hind, force on their flagging myriads which their simplicity once fan- 
cied beyond the power of mortal man? Believe It who will, I cannot. 

"Shall I not believe that though this great war had no general upon 
earth, it may have had a general In heaven, and that in spite of all 
their sins the hosts of our forefathers were the hosts of God?" 

The capture of Constantinople in 1453 by the Turks seemed the death 
knell of Europe, but rather was It Its new birth, for the scholars fleeing 
thence carried seeds of culture that soon made all Italy and France and 
Spain and England alive with the Renaissance and the Reformation. 
For his own gratification and love of power Henry VIII defied the Pope, 
but he was none the less an agent In freeing Enpland from Romish 
domination. Our fathers came to Plymouth Hock for their own way 



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of worship, and to Jamestown for opportunity of better living; both 
were inseparably bound up with the forming of a new nation, but they 
knew it not. A generation ago a great war was fought for the preser- 
vation of the Union, incidentally, under God, it was the means of free- 
ing millions of human beings from slavery. A Boxer uprising in China 
in 1900, as an ignorant protest against western civilization, becomes the 
means of witnessing the Christian devotedness even unto death of thou- 
sands of Chinamen, and of bringing China into such vital contact with 
western powers that within a single decade she makes more innovations 
than in the previous millennium. The unprecedented increase of wealth 
in the hands of a few and the resultant monopoly of the necessities of 
life has been hard on the masses, but the very centralization is teaching 
the practicability of universal co-operation, so that the day of industrial 
democracy is being unsuspectingly ushered in by antithetic individual- 
ism. Selfish corruption in politics has unwittingly rung the death-knell 
of bossism through an awakened civic responsibility. The abolishment 
of war and the day of universal peace among the nations is being un- 
expectedly hastened by the very gigantic cost of military and naval 
armament. 

* * * 

Bishop William F. Anderson, in presenting the claims of "Christ, 
the True Optimist," says: 

I. What a source of strength it would be to the Church if it could 
only fully realize that God is consummating his high purposes as surely 
as time speeds onward. How happens it that we do not see this more 
clearly? It is largely because we do not view the factors in the case 
with sufficient comprehensiveness. We do not take the long look back- 
ward through all the centuries as- we should. Judgments based on a 
few events or on the facts of a few years are not trustworthy. 

II. A careful study of the history of all the Christian centuries will 
clearly reveal the fact that — 

"Through the ages one increasing purpose runs." 

Gibbon's "Decline and Pall of the Roman Empire" and Carlyle's 
"History of the French Revolution" introduce us to the long look into 
history. The former extends over more than a thousand years. And 
we read clearly between the lines penned by its author that "there is a 
God that judgeth in the earth." 

If we did but recognize the fact, the centuries, as they have fallen 
"like grains of sand" from the hand of the Great Creator, have rendered 
their final verdict concerning some very important questions. The ques- 
tion of infanticide is settled forever, so is that of the compulsory degra- 
dation of woman as a mere chattel, as is also the question of human 
slavery. 

III. The Christian sentiment of our own times is crystallizing for 
the formulation of its sentence of condemnation upon other great public 
evils. Some day we shall hear a righteous, scathing, and final verdict 
upon the shameless inquities of inordinate greed, of the organized 
crimes of vice and intemperance, and of selfishness in all its varied 
forms. Some day, too, we shall have a final manifesto in regard to the 



THE DIVINE GUARANTEE 



161 



unreasonableness and inhumanity of -war between man and man. Nor 
is faith disturbed in the least, in the utterance of these sentiments by 
roar of cannon and flash of bayonet from across the seas. 

The violation of the law of right meets its penalty as inevitably 
in history as in nature. The same God presides over both realms and 
fully vindicates himself in each. Human shortsightedness may boast 
for a time that God is with the force whose armament is strongest; but 
the divine drift of the ages teaches us the wiser lesson, that that force 
is strongest which has God and right for its armament. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
The Bible's Influence on Human Life (249). 
The influence of the Bible on human life is strikingly told by Presi- 
dent Woodrow Wilson in the following words: "The opinion of the 
Bible bred in me, not only by the teaching of my home when I was a 
boy, but also by every turn and experience of my life and every step of 
study, is that it is the one supreme source of revelation, the revelation 
of the meaning of life, the nature of God, and the spiritual nature and 
needs of men. It is the only guide of life which really leads the spirit 
in the way of peace and salvation. If men could but be made to know 
It Intimately and for what it really is, we should have secured both 
Individual and social regeneration." — Christian Observer. 

The Revolutionizing Influence of Christianity (250). 
Once when Ingersoll lectured in Pittsburgh, there lived there a 
lawyer who had been his schoolmate. The latter although starting in 
life with brilliant prospects, a fine practice, a happy home, fell into 
temptation and became a sot. His business was ruined and his home 
broken up. In New York a slum worker found him in the gutter, led 
him to Christ, and be had regained his former place, with a reunited 
family and a thriving business. When he read in the newspapers that 
Mr. Ingersoll was to speak, he wrote him a little note something like 
this: 

"My Dear Old Friend: I see that tonight you are going to deliver 
a lecture against Christianity and the Bible. Perhaps you know some 
of my history since we parted, perhaps you know that I disgraced my 
home and family, and all that a man can hold dear in this world. 

You may know that I went down and down until I was a poor, 
despised outcast, and when I thought there was none to help and none 
to save, there came one In the name of Jesus, who told me of his power 
to help, and his loving kindness and his tender sympathy, and through 
the story of the Cross of Christ I turned to him. I brought my wife 
back to my home and gathered my children together again, and we are 
happy now and I am doing what good I can. 

"And now, old friend, would you stand tonight before the people of 
Pittsburgh, and tell them what you have to say against the religion that 
will come down to the lowest depths of hell and find mo and help mo 
up and make my wife happy, and clothe my children, and give me back 
my home and friends — will you tell them what you have to say against 
a religion like that?" 

Mr. Ingersoll read the letter before his audience, and he said: 



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"Ladies and gentlemen, I have nothing to say against a religion that 
will do this for a man. I am here to talk about a religion which is 
being preached by the preachers." 

The Vitalizing Power of God's Truth (251). 

The life filled with the spirit of God is a minister of vitality. Wher- 
ever the figure of the river is used in the Scriptures it always implies 
the carriage and the impartation of life. "The river of water of life," 
"Everything shall live whither the river cometh." Those who are in 
communion with the Holy Spirit are the antagonists of death, and con- 
vey the life-giving powers of the eternal God. 

First of all, they will vitalize dead organizations. There is nothing 
more burdensome than an organization bereft of life. There is nothing 
more inert than machinery divorced from energy. The church is cum- 
bered by dead and dormant institutions. Everywhere there is the incu- 
bus of institutionalism that has no inherent vitality. Now the disciples 
of the Lord Jesus are to bring the needful life. Their influence Is to 
be that of a river upon a mill wheel. It changes the inactivity of death 
into beneficent motion, and things that were only impediments become 
ministers of progress. 

And the disciples of Christ are also to vitalize dead dispositions. 
Everywhere in human life there are withered and withering things 
which need to be quickened. In some lives hopes are drooping like 
spring blossoms that have been nipped by the frost. In other lives 
desires are fading and are like plants that are suffering from thirst. 
And again in other lives the affections are ailing, and their strength 
is lapsing into perilous weakness. If we could only look into the secret 
places of the souls of men we should be amazed in how many lives 
there is the touch of death. 

Now the friends of the Lord Jesus are to move about among these 
drooping people like "rivers of water of life." The withered heart is 
to be thrilled by our presence. The drooping faculty is to lift itself 
up in new strength by reason of the influence of our lives. — J. H. Jow- 
ett, D.D. 

Omnipotence, Omniscience (252). 

In this doctrine of God's omnipotence we find the assurance of de- 
liverance from all our distresses. If we cannot believe that the good 
must ultimately triumph over the evil, if we are not confident of the 
coming of the Kingdom, then life is a great blinding mockery. As we do 
become convinced of the power of God to work his sovereign will, we 
look forward to the future with hope and confidence. 

Together with the thought of omnipotence goes that of omniscience. 

A man in London writes to his friend in Alaska. They are on op- 
posite sides of the earth, the one in the heart of civilization, the other 
in the midst of a wilderness, but the same sun and moon shine upon 
them both, and both live in the presence of God. 

God's omniscience banishes loneliness. 

The final attribute of sovereignty which the Jews saw in the great 
King was that of the righteous judge. These people had a deep sense 
of personal responsibility. They knew that they would be held re- 
responsible for their lives and that they would be judged righteously. 



THE DIVINE GUARANTEE 



163 



We recognize this judgment in the natural order. If a man puts 
his finger on a red-hot stove he gets burned. Just so it is in the moral 
order. Watch any crowd of people and see the despair, the coarseness, 
and the unrest written upon some of the faces by lives of sin, and 
doubt, if you can, the judgment of God. "Be not deceived, God cannot 
be mocked." "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." — 
Rev. M. R. Boynton. 

A Mighty Force (253). 

One of the most remarkable exhibitions of plant force I ever saw 
was in a Western city where I observed a species of wild sunflower 
forcing its way up through the asphalt pavement; the folded and com- 
pressed leaves of the plant, like a man's fist, had pushed against the 
hard but flexible concrete till it had bulged up and then split, and let 
the irrepressible plant through. 

The force exerted must have been many pounds. I think it doubt- 
ful if the strongest man could have pushed his flst through such a 
resisting medium. 

If it was not life which exerted this force, what was it? Life is a 
kind of explosion, and the slow continued explosions of this growing 
plant rent the pavement as surely as powder would have done. It is 
doubtful it any cultivated plant could have overcome such odds. It 
required the force of the untamed hairy plant of the plains to accom- 
plish this feat. — John Burroughs, in The Atlantic. 

'It Is astonishing how a single Gospel truth, honestly and warmly 
held, takes possession of our whole being and influences the whole life. 
A lichen is minute and frail, yet it will corrode quartz, pulverize the 
hardest rocks. So get a very fragment of Christ's truth into the soul, 
and it subdues the powers of evil, brings forth sweet and glorious fruits 
of light." 

A Living Power (254). 

"The churches are dying out all over the land; they are struck with 
death." These words of a speech made by Robert Ingersoll were read 
In the morning newspaper by Chaplain McCabe as he was making a 
journey by train. At the next station the Chaplain sent this dispatch 
to Ingersoll: "Dear Robert! All hail the power of Jesus' name. We 
are building more than one Methodist church for every day in the year, 
and propose to make it two a day. C. C. McCabe." 



XXXI. THE FOE WITHIN. 



"The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." — Jere- 
miah 17:9. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Principal Forsyth, in speaking of the depth of the evil in the heart 
of man and of our sense of it, said: 

I. It is Christ who has graven on the world the sense of sin. It 
did not trouble the ancients much. They saw the ugly; they felt the 
ache of life. They spoke of error, and of missing the way. But sinful 
man has more than missed the way. He has struck his guide in the 
face. Sin is more than ugly, more than a deformity — it is rebellion. It 
is hostility. It begins by displeasing God, and ends by hating him in this 
life or the next. 

Do not say that nobody loves the bad, that those who do so mistake 
it for the good, and love it as good. Is there no such thing as malevo- 
lent joy? Do not say that all evil is but the exaggeration of some good, 
like gluttony or indolence; that it is the excess or misplacement of some- 
thing which in its place would be right. Is there no such thing as the 
hate of man for man, of nation for nation? Of what good thing is in- 
Bolence the excess? Is there any right place for malicious hate? 

II. It was Christ who unveiled the depth of the evil in the human 
soul, the bias to the bad, the hatred of the holy, the dread of the truth, 
the idolatry of self, the love of wickedness. He could not reveal God 
without revealing sin. And it is Christ that has sharpened our sense 
to feel the moral horror and insufferableness of these evil things. He 
has raised the standard infinitely, and deepened our guilt to correspond. 
The high light makes deep shadow. 

To bring home the nature and meaning of sin, Christ gave the world 
another thing for ever. It is Holiness. There is nothing so deep and 
powerful as holiness. Nothing bears so irresistibly the stamp of God. 
Where did we learn it? From Christ? Nay, more. In Christ. What 
Christ brought was not the idea of humanity, of the love of man. That 
was in the world before. The Stoics knew something of that high ideal. 
But Christ brought it as a power, as a real life. And he made it a 
power, not as the poet does, but as the prophet; because he brought it 
as God's love, as holy love. The great apologetic is a holy life. Imagine 
the impossible. If one Church lived exclusively on philanthropy, and 
another exclusively on sanctity, whose would the future be? The latter, 
the holy church, would have the future. For holiness means love and 
kindness; but love does not always mean holiness. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. Hillis, In preaching on "Sin in the Heart," said: Mr. 
Moody once said: "I have more trouble with D. L. Moody than with 
anyone else." 

I. All men have something of the lower nature in them. The fact 
is, the fight of the Christian llfo Is to triumph over the lower nature. 
Wo must tlx our thoughts upon tho high things and starve to death 



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the lower nature by refusing to feed it. Sin in the human life feeds 
upon attention, and when you cease to regard sin in the life, but turn 
resolutely to God, the desire for sinful things passes away. There is a 
psychological reason for "looking unto Me all ye eDds of the earth and 
being saved." There is a psychological as well as theological reason 
for "beholding the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the 
world." If our eyes are fixed upon the Christ then sin dies for want of 
support. 

There is the same reason for keeping in good health in the religious 
sense that there is in the physical. Here are two men living in the same 
locality where typhoid germs are prevalent. Both men mix and mingle 
with the germs. One is attacked by the disease while the other is not 
affected in the least. Why? In the one case the one has strength to 
neutralize the work of the germs and in the other case the man has no 
power to resist them. Many a young man falls on Saturday night be- 
cause he has not kept himself in the love of God during the week. He 
lacks spiritual strength. The temptation of Jesus was greater because it 
came at a time when he was the weakest physically. 

II. It is folly to dally with sin. Robert Louis Stevenson has given 
us an illustration of this conflict and the penalty for playing with sin. 
Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde represent the higher and the lower nature. Dr. 
Jekyl, the better self, was a scholar, a gentleman and a physician of 
an enviable reputation in his community. But he began to experiment 
with his lower self, Mr. Hyde, and on that plane of consciousness com- 
mitted the worst sort of crimes. He would then pass back to Dr. Jekyl. 
He did it as an experiment. All sin is an experiment with the wrong 
elements. Adam and Eve experimented to their sorrow in the Garden 
of Eden. The time came when Mr. Hyde was not able to transform 
himself into his better self. He reached the point where the higher 
nature became the slave to the lower nature. It was this which led to 
total depravity. 

III. What is total depravity? Total depravity is the lower nature 
triumphing over the higher nature. It is the worst nature expelling 
the best from the ruling power in one's life. I knelt beside the form of 
a drunken outcast in the Hadley Mission one night, and told him of a 
better life and the fruits of the Spirit. I shall never forget how the 
fellow looked up into my face and said, "You are right, but that is for 
the other fellow, but not for me." The life had been lived so long on 
the animal plane of consciousness that he was unable to will to lead a 
better life. Is there hope for such as he? 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Little Foxes (255). 
The ground squirrel of the Pacific Coast destroys more wealth year 
by year than all the forest fires of North America, and the boll weevil 
exacts a heavier toll of the South than the floods of the Mississippi. 
Grasshoppers are worse than cyclones. The "cutworm" is deadlier than 
hail-stones. Freezing destroys an occasional fruit crop, but, except for 
unrelenting war, the codling moth and San Jose scale miss none. It 
is even so in the eternal interests of our lives. More wreck and ruin 



THE FOE WITHIN 



167 



are wrought by the little foxes of ill-disposition than by the roaring 
lions of outbreaking sin. — The Christian Evangelist. 

Sin's Deceitful Promises (256). 

Sin never satisfies. It does not keep its promise. Sin and salt 
water are alike — both appear to relieve, but really create thirst. Sane 
shipwrecked men do not drink ocean water. As Coleridge says in 
Ancient Mariner: "Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to 
drink." The more one indulges in any sin the greater demand is made 
for more. Habit grows by what it feeds on. 

Sin is misplaced confidence. Youths and maidens believe wrong- 
doing brings peace and pleasure. Novels make bad people prosper, but 
Shakespeare follows every sin to its nemesis. Young people sink their 
teeth in apples of Sodom, only to find them full of ashes. He who bids 
good-bye .to his conscience will realize, some day, his error and cry for 
its return. Strangers place confidence in a "confidence" man and lose 
money; inexperienced people confide in sin and soon discover happi- 
ness and aelf-respect have fled. — Pacific. 

Sin's Disguises (257). 
I answered a call at the door. On the steps was a man, the very 
picture of sin, unshaven, ragged, and dirty; holes in his hat, elbows, 
knees of his trousers, and shoes — his feet on the ground. Wretched- 
looking creature! 

He called me by name and wanted to come in. How could I let 
him? He was a perfect Btranger to me, and, being frightened by his 
coarse looks, I shut the door. 

About the same hour the next day the ringing of the bell brought 
me again to the door. A perfect gentleman, in appearance (high Bilk 
hat. Prince Albert coat, diamond ring, gold-headed cane), accosted me. 
He also appeared to know me. "Come in," I said. We were Beated In 
the parlor but a few minutes when he succeeded in interesting me in 
a money scheme in which I was to get rich quickly, if I ventured. I 
was about to pay over the ten dollars which was to make me a member 
of the concern when the bell rang. Excusing myself I went to the door 
with the note in my hand. 

At the door was the detective looking for the veneered scamp in the 
parlor. I admitted him, and the secret was out — "Sin appeared sin." 

The man in fine clothes was the fellow In rags the day before. He 
had stolen the clothes, ring, and cane, and by them deceived me. — S. J. 
Nicholls, D.D. 

The Subtle Power of Evil (258). 
Last fall In going into the oil country, a well-to-do family occupied 
the adjoining car-seata. They were returning from the clover-Bcented 
air of the White Hills. To the ordinary mortal the odor of petroleum 
aa he enters the oil-belt, is far from alluring. But to those to the 
manor born It is aometimes pleasant. As the first whiffs from the great 
kerosene tanks gave notice of entrance to the oil regions, the young 
hopeful of the family sprung up in his seat, clapped his hands, and 
ahouted, "How good It smells!" Manty betray a similar fascination over 
the alimy oils pressed from crime Beed, which feed the flambeaux that 



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form so sensational a feature in the life of our modern Vanity Fair. — 
Rev. Samuel G. Clark. 

Sin's Treachery (258a). 
During the last year or two there has been an extraordinary number 
of Alpine accidents, and in several instances they arose from a disre- 
gard of the danger of a grass slope. The inexperienced mountaineer 
thinks that a grass slope must be safe, and setting his foot on the invit- 
ing green discovers that it is every bit as dangerous as the ice, if it be 
steep and terminate in a precipice. The short Alpine grass is remarkably 
slippery, and many a tourist who has safely traveled over rock and 
glacier has fallen a victim to the treacherous slope where the verdant 
patch and mountain flower tempt the climber. We are comparatively safe 
when a thing is nakedly evil and the situation confessedly dangerous, 
but the green slope lures us to our doom. — Watkinson. 

Spiritual Suicide (259). 
Some men are lost by the force of their own passions. 1, as Balaam 
was by love of gold; 2, as Saul was by self-will ending in jealousy, and 
pride darkened into madness; 3, as Haman was by envy indulged and 
brooded on; 4, as the harlots were, through feelings pure and high at 
first, inverted and perverted; 5, as Judas was by secret dishonesty, unde- 
tected In its first beginnings — the worst misfortune that can befall a 
tendency to false life. — Robertson. 

From Within Out (260). 

Thoughts are the parents of character. Character is what a man is; 
reputation is what he passes for. Does the world think well of a man? 
That is his reputation; and it is a reputation worth contending for. Is 
he clean and white through and through, as fair inside as out, his heart 
of the same color as his life, the core of his being healthy, clean, and 
sweet? That is his character; and it is of the very best. 

An essayist reminds us: "There is an inner world of sin. 
There the ambitious can surround himself with the images of a power 
and splendor he can never attain. There a feeble hatred can exchange 
its pointless pen and blunted sarcasms for epigrams which make an ene- 
my's face blanch and his nerves quiver. There the voluptuary can scent 
the bouquet of the wine of sin, without the vulgarities and disappoint- 
ments which are the portion of those who drain the cup to the burning 
lees." 

Must a man be a liar to be untrue? Must he be a roue to be impure? 
Must he be caught red-handed to be cruel and vindictive? Nay. Thoughts 
make the man. Habitual thinking determines the character. Thoughts 
"originate in the life-cells of our being," according to the dictum of sci- 
ence, and are our truest issue and revelation. And thoughts may be as 
fatal as crime to the development of a lofty manhood. Regulate your 
thoughts, and you regulate the discretion and the measure of your 
growth. Think of sinful gains and sinful pleasures, and your character 
will lose its warmth and color. Think of duty, righteousness, and God, 
think of whatsoever things are honest, lovely, and of good report; and 
the beauty of holiness will be reflected in your face. — J. Sanders 
Reed, D.D. 



XXXII. THE SUCCESS THAT IS FAILURE. 



"Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness." — Jeremiah 
22:13. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
L. Building by unrighteous trade — Varying forms of fraud. 

II. Building by oppression of employees. The right law of hiring — 
prompt and frequent payment of the laborer's wages; a living wage; fair 
distribution of profits. 

III. Building by unjust administration of laws. Favoring the rich — 
"The law's delay." 

IV. Woe unto him — The doom of oppression and unjust governments 
or corporations. — The lesson of the French Revolution. 

Plato said that a man not paid when his wages were due should re- 
ceive double pay. Employers too often forget how a great part of the poor 
live, as the saying is, "from hand to mouth," so that the failure to get 
what is due at the time appointed is often a sore trial. This forces them 
to buy on credit, which increases the expense of their living. — Kellogg. 

"The destruction of the poor is their poverty." 

"He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord." 

* * * 
Crooked Business Methods. 

If I were a Christian business man I would be a Christian first and a 
business man afterward. 

I would not be satisfied with the business standards and ideals of 
the world around me. 

I would not offer goods at cost and then figure in a "living profit." 

I would not put a sham estimate of value on goods now on the bar- 
gain list. 

I would not advertise a twenty-dollar suit for fifteen, when It cost 
twelve and never sold for more than sixteen. 

I would not sell new, second-class goods as "slightly shopworn," Just 
to make them appear to be a bargain. 

I would not sell any article to whose use I am morally opposed. 

I would endeavor to enlist the co-operation of other merchants and 
the citizens In securing a sensible closing hour. 

I would try to keep business from side-tracking religion. 

I would not encourage any superstitious deference to my opinions 
simply because I am a "business man." Men of all other pursuits have 
some Intelligence. 

I would not encourage the legalizing of wrong, even if I believed It 
"helped business." 

I would do all In my power to introduce good business methods Into 
the affairs of the Church. 

I would not claim the right to "sell whatever the people want." Do 
not even the saloonkeepers the same? 

I would pay my help what they earned and deserved, but would not 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



consider it my duty to run a charitable institution for the benefit of in- 
competent, gum-chewing gossips and idlers. 

I would insist that neither dealers nor customers should be toadies 
or flunkies. 

I would not try to build up a separate class, but would unite with all 
clear-headed, good-hearted people who are laboring to bring about the 
"new earth" seen by the last of the prophets, and hoped and struggled 
for by all true Christians since his day. — Jeshurun, in Western Christian 
Advocate. 

In preaching on "The Mammon of Unrighteousness," Dr. David James 
Burrell said: The word "mammon" here means money. It is properly 
called the mammon of unrighteousness because it is all "tainted" with the 
germs of sinful traffic. It passes through the hands of drabs and drunk- 
ards, thieves, gamblers and sinners of every sort. 

It is lawful currency, nevertheless; and as such must be used by. 
God's people for the betterment of their fellow men. What a splendid 
tbing it would be if one of our multi-millionaires were to spend his pos- 
sessions in relieving the necessities of the poor! How many friends he 
would make by gladdening the hearts of widows and orphans and prison- 
ers of poverty! 

But these are not the friends of whom Christ was thinking when 
he enjoined his disciples to "make friends by means of the mammon of 
unrighteousness." His reference was to converted souls, friends on the 
other side, who going before should bid them welcome to the Father's 
house. 

Here is no intimation of earning an entrance to heaven by the benev- 
olent use of wealth or in any such way. There is not money enough in 
all the exchequers of this world to admit a sinner into the kingdom of 
God. Faith in Christ as the Saviour is the only condition of salvation; 
as he himself said, "This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom 
God hath sent." 

We are not to infer, however, that morality and benevolence have' no 
value. Faith is the passport that opens the gates of heaven; but good 
works make it resplendent with light. The right use of our time, talents 
and possessions for the extension of the kingdom of Christ will entitle 
us to the service chevron in the life further on. No good deed in the 
Master's name, not even the putting of a cup of cold water to thirsty 
lips, shall fail of its reward. The apprenticeship of this life is fitting us 
for the higher service of the eternal life. 

Our business as Christians is "to seek and to save the lost;" and our 
wealth, great or little, is intrusted to us with that end in view. "The 
mammon of unrighteousness" which we expend in the work of evangeliza- 
tion is making converts who will be our grateful friends forever. They 
are going on before; and what a welcome they will give us! The man 
who lives for his own salvation, thinking only of his title clear to man- 
sions in the skies, may be saved "so as by fire;" but what a lonely 
heaven his will be! Let us so discharge our stewardship that when we 
fail a multitude of grateful souls may give us welcome into the City of 
God. 



THE SUCCESS THAT IS FAILURE 



171 



ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
A Rich Man (260). A tramp stood looking at a great house, -where 
the owner lay dead. The tramp said, "I am a richer man than he is, for 
I am alive, and he is dead." And if the rich man did not have treasure 
in heaven, how poor he was! — Sunday School World. 

The Business Man's Temptation (261). 
There can be no doubt at all that the average business man's tempta- 
tions must chiefly lie in the direction of covetousness; to exaggerate the 
relative value of the thing he deals with — that is money; and in conse- 
quence, to underestimate whatever cannot be appraised by that conven- 
tional standard of the market. To be safe, therefore, the young man 
embarking on a commercial life is bound to keep this risk of his calling 
before his eyes. He must refuse to fall down and worship wealth, keep- 
ing his reverence for the good rather than for the opulent or success- 
ful; in a word, he must save himself from coming to think or act as if a 
man's life consisted in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. 
There are secondary safeguards, such as the pursuit of literature and the 
cultivation of a sympathizing contact with men and women in other than 
mere business relationships. — Selected. 

Business on Christian Principles (262). 
Recently the pastor of the Central Congregational Church, Atlanta, 
Ca., in preparing a sermon on "Religion and Business," sent a number 
of letterB to the leading business men asking them if the principles ot 
Christianity were incompatible with success in business. A majority of 
the successful business men replied at some length, and their replies 
were similar In tone to the two we quote. The leading banker, Mr. Asa 
G. Candler, wrote: "If I thought it were not possible then I would 
despair of successfully doing business at all. The fundamental principle 
as enunciated by our Lord, of the Christian religion, is the Golden Rule: 
'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' Let us ignore thiB, 
and all of our business systems crumble. If I regarded not that rule I 
would not deal with a man who disregarded iL I regret to believe that 
there may be business men who are willing to disregard Christian prin- 
ciples themselves, but these same men hesitate to do business with men 
who habitually ignore the principles of the Christian religion. If this be 
true, a successful business life must follow the Golden Rule and the 
policleB of Him who was God as well aB man?" Mr. Frederic J. Paxon 
wrote: "The business of the twentieth century Ib not laid down on a 
strictly legal foundation. By thiB I mean that character counts 75 per 
cent In all transactions, against 25 per cent legal, rather than 75 per cent 
logal and 25 per cent moral, or a ratio of three to one in favor of char- 
acter — that Is, a man may be legally right, but morally wrong, and the 
world's question Is always: Is he morally right?" — Episcopal Recorder. 

Christian Business (263). 
A merchant having an extensive business was in danger of financial 
wreck. He went to another leading business man, Baying, "I am ruined, 
gone, unless I have help. Will you give me so much for these stocks?" 
"No!" "Then I am ruined!" "But I will give you ten thousand dollars 



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more!" When asked why he did not take the man at his offer, and m^.ke 
ten thousand dollars, the other's answer was: "I am a Christian, seeking 
to please Christ; and I could not have prayed if I had taken advantage 
of his distress." Such is the law of Christian business living. — C. E. 
World. 

Unrighteous Business Methods Defeated (264). 

"No," said the lawyer, "I shan't press your claim against that man; 
you can get someone else to take your case or you can withdraw it, just 
as you please." 

"Think there isn't any money in it?" 

"There would probably be some money in it, but it would, as you 
know, come from the sale of the little house the man occupies and calls 
home; but I don't want to meddle with the matter, anyhow." 

"Got frightened out of it, eh." 

"No, I wasn't frightened out of it." 

"I suppose likely the old fellow begged hard to be let off." 
"Well, yes, he did." 
"And you caved, likely?" 
"No, I didn't speak a word to him." 
"What in creation did you do?" 
"I believe I shed a few tears." 
"And the old fellow begged you hard, you say?" 
"No, I didn't say so; he didn't speak a word to me." 
"Well, may I respectfully inquire whom he did address in your 
hearing?" 

"God Almighty." 

"Ah, he took to praying, did he?" 

"Not for my benefit in the least. You see I found the little house 
easily enough and knocked at the outer door, which stood ajar. Nobody 
heard me, so I slipped into the hall and saw, through the crack of an- 
other door, on a bed, with her silver head way up high on the pillows, 
an old lady, who looked as my mother did the last time I ever saw her. 
And down on his knees by her side was an old white-haired man. Well, 
he prayed. He reminded God they were still his submissive children, 
mother and he; and no matter what he saw fit to bring upon them they 
shouldn't rebel at his will! Of course, 'twas going to be terrible hard for 
them to go out homeless in their old age, especially with poor mother so 
sick and helpless; but still they'd seen sadder things than ever that 
would be; nothing could be so sharp as the parting with their three 
sons — unless mother and he should be separated. But at last he fell to 
comforting himself that the dear Lord knew it was through no fault ol 
his own, that mother and he were threatened with the loss of their dear 
little home, which meant beggary and the almshouse; a place they prayed 
to be delivered from entering if it could be consistent with God's will. 
And then he quoted a multitude of promises concerning the safety of 
those who put their trust in the Lord; yes, I should say he begged hard; 
in fact, it was the most thrilling plea to which I ever listened. And at 
last he prayed for God's blessing on those who were about to demand 
justice" — the lawyer sat in silence for a moment, then continued more 
slowly than before, "I believe I'd rather go to the Doorhouse myself. 



THE SUCCESS THAT IS FAILURE 



173 



tonight, than to stain my heart and hands with the blood of such a 
prosecution as that." 

"Little afraid to defeat the old man's prayer, eh?" 

"Bless your soul, man, you could not defeat it!" roared the lawyer. 
"It doesn't admit of defeat! You see, I was taught that kind of thing 
myself in my childhood; and why I was sent to hear that prayer I'm sure 
I don't know, but I hand the case over." 

"I wish," said the client, twisting uneasily, "you hadn't told me about 
the old fellow's prayer." 

"Why so?' 

"Well, I greatly want the money the place would bring, but was 
taught the Bible all straight when I was a youngster; and I'd hate to run 
counter to such a harangue as that you tell about. I wish you hadn't 
heard a word of it; and another time I wouldn't listen to petitions not 
intended for your ears." 

The lawyer smiled. 

"My dear fellow," he said, "you're wrong again; it was Intended for 
my ears and yours, too, and God Almighty intended it. My mother used 
to sing about God moving in a mysterious way, I remember." 

"Well, my mother used to sing It, too," said the claimant, as he 
twisted his claim-papers in his fingers. "You can call in, in the morning, 
if you like, and tell mother and him the claim has been met." 

"In a mysterious way," added the lawyer, smiling. — Selected. 

How Men Rob God (2650 - 
Two men, a Christian and a skeptic, were discussing the evidences 
of the Christian religion. The skeptic frankly and bluntly said: "We 
might as well drop this matter, for I don't believe a word you say; and 
more than that, you yourself don't really believe it. For to my certain 
knowledge you have not given, the last twenty years, so much for the 
spread of Christianity, such as the building of churches, or for foreign 
and home missions, as your last Durham cow cost." — C. E. World. 

God's Treasures Better Than Man's (266). 

When Andrew Jackson went from the presidency back to his home 
In Tennessee he had had wealth, he had had the highest position the 
nation could give to him, but there, in the privacy of retired life, he read 
the Bible and he sought the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave his heart to the 
Saviour, and went around proclaiming that of all the treasures that life 
had brought to him from his humble life up to the presidency, there was 
no treasure so valuable as the pearl of greatest possible price, the sense 
of God's salvation In his heart. Andrew JackBon was right about it; he 
died In the simplicity of faith, with his friends around his bedside, telling 
them that above all price was the gift of salvation, above all value the 
holy Book, and urging them to love God and serve him and meet him in 
heaven. God'B treasures are better than ours. — Connell. 

Christian Business Men (267). 
Men are asking everywhere th 13 question: "Is it possible for a man 
to be engaged In the activities of our modern life, and yet bo a Chris- 
tian? Is It possible for a man to be a broker, a shopkeeper, a lawyer, a 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



mechanic — is it possible for a man to be in a business of today and yet 
love his God and his fellow man as himself?" I do not know what trans- 
formations these dear businesses of yours must undergo before they 
shall be true and ideal homes for the child of God, but I do know that 
upon Christian merchants and Christian brokers and Christian lawyers 
and Christian men in business today there rests an awful and a beautiful 
responsibility to prove — if you can prove it — that these things are capable 
of being made divine; to prove that a man can do the work which you 
have been doing this morning, and will do this afternoon, and yet love 
his God and his fellow man as himself. If he cannot, what business have 
you to be doing them? If he can, what business have you to be doing 
them so poorly, carnally, and unspiritually that men look on them and 
shake their heads with doubt? It belongs to Christ in men, first, to 
prove that man may be a Christian and yet do business; and, in the sec- 
ond place, to show how a man, as he becomes a greater Christian, shall 
purify and lift the business which he does and make it the worthy occu- 
pation of the son of God. — Phillips Brooks. 



XXXIII. THE WISDOM AND REWARDS OF 
THE SOUL-WINNER. 

And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament. 
And they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and 
ever. — Daniel 12:3. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
The Soul-Winner. 

1. The winner of souls works with the most precious and promising 
raw material — Manhood. 

2. He has the greatest co-worker — Christ. 

3. The results are the most remarkable — the transformation of char- 
acter. 

4. The rewards are the richest — the rest prepared. 

* * * 

Canon Wilberforce, in preaching on the Christian's obligation to the 
unbeliever, developed the theme as follows: 

L The heavenly citizen must first be deeply convinced of the truth 
of the proposition, Magna est Veritas et prrevalebit. In "contending 
earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints," his contention will 
be rather to persuade men than to defend God; not, Uzzah-like, to imag- 
ine that he will uphold that which is tottering. This reflection will free 
him from timidity as to any supposed conflict between science and reve- 
lation. "Without Him was not anything made that was made." The 
Investigating faculty of man is the boring tool, whereby the glories of the 
living God are dug out of his mines, and in the reverent pursuit of nat- 
ural science the thoughts of God become visible. 

II. Those who know the secret of the Lord will lead the anxious 
doubter away from systems, controversies, and debates into the presence 
of the Lord himself. Philip of Bethsaida, in the history before us, illus- 
trates the true method. He had found Jesus, had recognized in him the 
Christ — God's answer to the hunger and thirst of humanity; such a knowl- 
edge evidences its reality by its self-communicativeness. He rushes to 
bis friend, without preface, argument or explanation; he says, "I have 
found the Christ." He knows what he has found; he can at least Invite 
trial; he Is not afraid to subject the blessed truth to the most searching 
analysis, the closest Investigation. "Philip saith unto him, Come and 
■ee." Here Is the one absolute, irrefragable Christian evidence: the 
power of Jesus Christ to satisfy every human instinct, to fill the heart 
to overflowing, to save to the uttermost, to elevate the affections, to 
perfect the nature, to ennoble the character, of fallen man. Inasmuch 
aB the best sermon Is a life, our life should so witness that men should be 
compelled to acknowledge that "the life we live In the flesh we live by 
the faith of the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us." 

* * * 

Bishop J. M. Thoburn In presenting the subject of Soul-Wlnnlng 
emphasized tho necessity for aggressiveness. 



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The disciple must go to those who need him; they will not come to 
him. Earth's highways and byways are alike filled with the neglected 
and perishing, and the disciple, like his Master, has a special mission td 
them. "As the Father hath sent me into the world, even so send I you." 
Like our blessed Saviour, we too must seek and save the lost. We are 
ever prone to turn to those who have not gone astray, hut such was not 
the spirit of the Master. God has in these latter days brought all the 
ends of the earth together, and now the earnest worker can go to almost 
any part of the globe without difficulty, and bring in the wanderer and 
the outcast to the royal feast of heaven. With hands of holy violence 
and yet with the voice of love and the touch of gentleness we should go 
after the most needy and neglected ones of earth in the assured confi- 
dence that God's blessing will follow us, and that our labors shall not be 
in vain. In the great banqueting house of heaven may it be ours to see 
some among the happy guests who shall have been gathered in by our 
faithful obedience to this command! 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. Joseph Parker said: I welcome every man who can speak 
one word for his Master; somebody, somewhere, wants that particular 
word. 

George MacDonald wrote: Christians must be in the world as he 
was in the world; and in proportion as the truth radiates from them, the 
world will be able to believe in him. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
The Main Thing (268). 

In a $1,000,000 bank a teller called to me, "Come over to my window, 
if you have a minute to spare; I want to tell you something good." He 
told me how he and some other young men of his church "stayed at the 
church last Saturday night till a very late hour praying for some of the 
young men of our neighborhood. And at the Sunday night's service five 
of them came out for Christ. Isn't that glorious? There is nothing like 
it, winning souls for him." 

Indeed that was "something good." You could hardly find a busier 
man than this same young married man, an employee in a great bank. 
He considers the winning of souls the main thing in life. "Here is my 
pistol, and, while I carry it all the time, I've never been arrested for it," 
said he one day as he drew from his pistol pocket a "worker's manual," 
a soul winner's help. 

Because you find no time for that kind of work or service, you may 
think there is not much of it done. But a great deal of it is done, and 
that by the very busiest men, men "up to the eyes in business" all day 
long. Often the most efficient worker in this line is the head of some 
great business concern, one of the "captains of industry." 

One who makes this the main thing in his life will always find time 
for a good deal of this service. When you are looking for it, the oppor- 
tunity for it meets you at every turn. Try it, and prove this for yourself. 

Often you, a business or professional man, a layman, could reach an 
unsaved man, when your pastor could not touch him. Could all men be 
brought to realize that they have a personal responsibility for the salva- 



THE WISDOM AND REWARDS OF THE SOUL-WINNER 177 



tlon of those about them, the "world," for which he died, would soon be 
brought to Christ. — Pres. Advance. 

Turning Men to Christ (269). 

A little tract dropped in his path by an unknown woman, resulted in 
the conversion of Richard Baxter, who afterward led large numbers to 
Christ, including Philip Doddridge, who then won others to the faith, in- 
cluding William Wilberforce, who, in turn, was blessed to the spiritual 
quickening of many, including Leigh Richmond and Thomas Chalmers, 
whose memory, for like reasons, is now blessed by thousands. 

At a meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, on the evening of May 
24, 1738, one read aloud Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. 
In the audience was a young minister, in deep concern about religion. 
Through what he heard, a new light flashed into his mind; a new life 
stirred within him; "a 6trange warmth" at his heart led him to say, 
"The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me;" and from this work 
of grace in John Wesley himself came that great religious revival, the 
result of which today, we see in the more than twenty millions who own 
him as their spiritual father. 

A humble, hard-working evangelist in Wales had but one convert 
about whom he was confident. This latter, however, was William of 
Wern, who is said to have brought a third of the principality to Christ 

A young Aberdeenshire girl, through hearing a missionary sermon, 
resolved to work for missions, and this, accordinglly, she at once pro- 
ceeded to do. In after times, when she had become a wife and mother, 
she so interested her boy in the cause of the heathen that he ultimately 
became an agent of the Church Missionary Society and soon afterwards 
was widely known as "Mackay of Uganda." — J. R. Miller, D.D. 

The Personal Touch (270). 

A noted evangelist was once holding a series of services in a church 
whose minister was a man of long experience and of great influence. One 
night as they sat on the platform together, the minister pointed out to 
the evangelist a man in the audience. 

"For twelve years," he said, "I have tried to win that man to Christ. 
I have preached to him so long that I sometimes find myself doing it 
almost unconsciously." 

"From the pulpit?" asked the evangelist, 

"From the pulpit, yea." 

"How many times have you gone to him with the love of God in your 
heart and said: 'I want to see you become a child of God?' " 

"I must confess," said the minister, "that I have never spoken to him 
personally and directly concerning his salvation." 

"Then," said the evangelist, "perhaps he is not Impregnable after all." 

That night the evangelist, after the service, caught the man before he 
got to the door. He spoke only a few words, but they were earnest and 
loving. And the next evening In the "after service," In which many souls 
have found lasting peace and eternal life, the man was on his kneeB with 
the tears streaming down his cheeks. It was the personal touch that did it. 

The sermon is effective with many. Music has brought salvation 
to many a life. But In thousands and thousands of cascB it Is only tho 
personal touch that wins.— William Thomas McEIroy. 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



The Joy of the Winner (271). 
While traveling down the Ohio River on a steamboat my attention 
was called to the pilot, who was a coarse looking man. The captain in- 
formed me that three weeks ago, as the boat was going through the 
rapids, the pilot called him to take the helm. He had just seen a boy 
struggling in the water. He sprang into the boiling waters and saved 
the boy. I went up to the brave man and spoke to him: "Do you ever 
see the boy whom you saved?" "Yes," he answered, "at every trip he 
comes down to the boat to see me." "And how do you feel when you see 
him?" "More than I can tell you," he replied. "More intense interest 
than in any of my own seven at home, for whom I have run no such risk." 

Waiting to be Won (272). 

A missionary physician in one of China's hospitals cured a man of 
cataract. A few weeks later forty-eight blind men from one of China's 
wilds, each holding on to a rope held in the hands of the man who was 
cured, came to him. Thus in a chain they had walked two hundred and 
fifty miles to the hospital, where nearly all were cured. What a pathetic 
procession those blind men must have made! Yet it is typical of the 
willingness of the world to come to a man who has something genuine 
to give them. — Record of Christian Work. 

A Passion for Souls (273). 
Has the benighted soul ever caused us as much pain as some trivial 
pecuniary loss has done? Have we ever felt the smart of the gaping 
wounds through which our brother's blood is pouring forth as much as 
we do the tiniest scratch on our own fingers? Does it sound to us like 
exaggerated rhetoric when a prophet breaks out, "Oh, that my head were 
waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep night and 
day!" or when an apostle in calmer tones declares, "I have great heavi- 
ness and continual sorrow of heart?" Some seeds are put to steep and 
swell in water, that they may be tested before sowing. The seed which 
we sow will not germinate unless it be saturated with our tears. — Alexan- 
der Maclaren, D.D. 

The Point of Contact (274). 

In Japan's recent war, the Young Men's Christian Association was 
anxious to be about its work, and gain a foothold among the soldiers. 
The permission it was able to secure was that of having, among those 
encamped at the front, a tent where baths, hair-cutting, and like conven- 
iences could be furnished. A barber-shop was very far below the ideal of 
Christian service that the Association had in view, but it was the narrow 
door that opened, and there was no question as to utilizing it. The bar- 
bering was faithfully done, the bathing facilities were supplied, a table 
where letters could be written home and a stock of books and papers 
were added, and that tent became immensely popular. Its fame spread, 
and the Association was granted new privileges and endorsed by high 
authorities until it was able to go forward comparatively unhampered. — 
Onward. 



XXXIV. OUR SURE REFUGE. 



"The Lord is good, a stronghold In the day of trouble; and he knoweth 
them that trust in him." — Nahum 1:7. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Frederick Lynch in commenting on "God's Deliverances," used 
the following hints of development: 

L Times of Danger. — It is often said that the thing Jesus did was 
to personalize religion. The Old Testament is a book of national deliver- 
ance, a paean of God's redemption of a people; but the New Testament is 
near, intimate, personal, a story of God's friendly, confidential relations 
with persons. Yet the Psalms abound in the tenderest and most confident 
assertions of the loving-kindness of God and of instances where he has 
delivered the writer out of all his troubles. 

Our own experience, In the times when we have been In danger, cor- 
roborates exactly these wonderful deliverances of the Psalmist. Just as 
we seemed about to sink, again and again the hand of God plucked us 
from the dark waters. It is interesting to note, in reading Professor 
James's "Varieties of Religious Experience," how almost every case of 
sudden conversion came just as the soul was on the brink of catastrophe. 

II. Perils Unrecognized. Our deliverances from unrecognized perils 
are most wonderful of all. Again and again we have been turned from 
some course — perhaps a course upon which our hearts were most set — 
and we have wondered why God thwarted us. At the time It almost 
seemed as if he were cruel to us. But afterwards we have seen that that 
was a real deliverance from a real danger; a peril unrecognized at the 
time but now seen. 

III. Ways of Deliverance. It is helpful to remember In how many 
ways God works; how various are his ways of answering prayer. Nee- 
sima, who founded Doshisha in Japan, found deliverance through happen- 
ing upon a copy of the Gospels, as did Augustine. Some of our prayers 
for deliverance God answered by sending ub a friend. A great man once 
said in my hearing that God delivered him from evil ways by sending 
him a beautiful wife. Children are sometimes God's answer to prayer. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. Theodore Cuyler In preaching on "Our Divine Refuge," Baid 
He who piloted the patriarch through the deluge, and fed the prophet by 
the brook, and supplied the widow's cruse, and watched over the Impris- 
oned apostles, and numbers the very hairs of our heads, he has every 
one of us on his great, almighty heart. What fools we are to tire our- 
selves out and break ourselves down while such an all-powerful helper is 
close by our side! Suppose that a weary traveler who Is trudging uphill 
were overtaken by a wagon whose owner kindly said to him: "My friend, 
you look tired; throw that knapsack Into my wagon; It will rest you, and 
I will see that it Is safe." ImaRlne the pedestrian eyeing him foolishly, 
and blurting out the churlish reply: "I can't trust you, sir; drive along; 



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I'll carry my own luggage." But this is the way that tens of thousands 
of Christians treat God. 

* * * 

An old English manuscript sets forth God's friendship in the follow- 
ing vivid sentences: 

Let me tell you how I made God's acquaintance. 

I had heard much of him, hut took no heed. 

He sent daily gifts and presents, hut I never thanked him. 

He often seemed to want my friendship, but I remained cold. 

I was homeless and wretched and starving and in peril every hour, 
and he offered me shelter and comfort and food and safety; but I was 
ungrateful still. 

At last he crossed my path, and with tears in his eyes he besought 
me, saying, "Come and abide with me." 
Let me tell you how he treats me now. 
He supplies all my wants. 
He gives me more than I dare ask. 
He anticipates my every need. 
He begs me to ask for more. 
He never reminds me of my past ingratitude. 
He never rebukes me for my past follies. 
Let me tell you further what I think of him. 
He is as good as he is great. 
His love is as ardent as it is true. 

He is as lavish of his promises as he is faithful in keeping them. 

He is as jealous of my love as he is deserving of it. 

I am in all things his debtor, but he bids me call him friend. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
He Meets All the Soul's Needs (275). 
Once when Kipling was sick the nurse noted the moving of his lips, 
and asked if he wanted anything. His reply was, "I want my Father 
now." Does experience prove that Jesus can meet the needs of the 
human soul? Ask the poor lonely widow. Ask the missionary, Pitkin, on 
his way to be slaughtered by the Boxers, and note his words: "Tell my 
boy, when he is grown up, I want him to come out here and take his 
father's place." Ask Hugh Price Hughes, and hear him say, "Thou, O 
Christ, art all I want." Ask that vast host of men and women who daily 
without complaint, bear their burdens, doing the world's work in the 
strength he has given, by his peace and joy turning their sorrows into a 
song, and hear the reply: "We have seen him whom the Greeks sought, 
and have found him sufficient for every need." 

Holding God's Hand (276). 

I was walking on a railroad track recently when I came to a trestle 
i — a long, high bridge over a stretch of water. Just as I reached the 
bridge I came upon two girls, each carrying a burden and starting over 
the track. I passed them when the younger said to the elder, "Oh, I am 
afraid to walk this trestle; hold my hand." I was in a hurry but I turned 
to see the little girl. The older one only laughed, so I said: "Come on, 
I'll lead you over," and, taking her hand, told her to look ahead and not 



OUR SURE REFUGE 



181 



down, always forward; so she became calm, walked steadily at my side, 
and grew confidential, saying: "My father was killed on a railroad, and 
mother always warns me about this bridge, she is so anxious." — A. B. 
Milligan, D.D. 

Sufficient For Me (277). 

The other evening I was riding home after a heavy day's work. I 
felt weary and sore depressed, when swiftly, suddenly, as a lightning 
flash, came: "My grace is sufficient for thee." And I said: "I should 
think it is, Lord," and burst out laughing. I never fully understood what 
the holy laughter of Abraham was until then. It seemed to make unbelief 
so absurd. 

It was as if some little fish, being very thirsty, was troubled about 
drinking the river dry; and Father Thames said: "Drink away little 
fish, my stream is sufficient for thee." Again, I imagined a man away up 
on yonder mountain saying to himself: "I fear I shall exhaust all the 
oxygen in the atmosphere." But the earth might say: "Breathe away, O 
man, and fill thy lungs ever; my atmosphere is sufficient for thee." 

O brethren, be great believers! Little faith will bring your souls to 
heaven, but great faith will bring heaven to you. — C. H. Spurgeon. 

He Cares (278). 

A lady told me recently that at a very critical moment in her life 
Bhe was saved by what she has ever since regarded as a remarkable ex- 
perience. She had been in deep trouble, and was thoroughly wretched. 
She saw nothing ahead, the night seemed starlesB, dark and black. In 
her despair she determined to end her unhappy life. She walked to a 
large pond in the vicinity and sat down upon the edge of it a moment to 
think. Then, when Bhe was on the point of plunging in, she felt a pres- 
sure upon her shoulders from behind holding her back. No human being 
was near, but she is sure somebody held her back. She tried to break 
away from the restraint but she could not. She believes that it was God 
who saved her. She Is now a happy and useful Christian and church 
member. — Ewart, 

God Watching Over U» (279). 

Helen Keller's mother used to lean over her little Helen's cradle, 
where Helen was all entombed in her little body that weighed fifty 
pounds, and her ears were deaf, saying: "Oh, Helen, Helen, how I love 
you! Oh, Helen, what your father and I would do for you: We would 
work our fingers to the very bono If you could only understand." The 
mother sobbed her love over little Helen, the dumb and blind girl, and 
there were not many things in the world bo heartbreaking as that mother, 
as ahe held this little girl to her bosom. And yet, all the time Helen 
Keller was Baying to herself: "Oh, if mother would only speak to me! 
Oh, why are mothers giving only the whisperings of their love?" Ever 
little Helen would say: "I wonder if I have a father and mother, and, if 
I have, why clouds and darkness are round about them." When she was 
Beven years of age she began to think that fathers and mothers were 
only Been through a glass, darkly; and yet her father and mother were 
breaking their hearts trying to reveal themselves to Helen. What a 
symbol of God leaning over the battlements of his heaven, speaking to 



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us through all the summer, unrolling his will through all the procession 
of the seasons, giving to us his music in all its solemnity of sweet 
sounds. — Hillis. 

Mother-love (280). 
What a glorious combination: the kind Father's heart and the al- 
mighty God's power! Oh, how bright and happy and Christian a future 
would you picture out for your children, if you had the power to make 
them as good and happy as you could wish! But with human beings it is 
a commonplace ten thousand times repeated, how far apart are will and 
power. You have heard of the poor mother with her infant, who perished 
in a snow-storm crossing the hills on a wild winter night; there, in the 
dark night, and amid the waste wilderness, the mother died. They found 
her in the morning, cold and dead; but the little child was alive and 
well; for the poor mother had spent her last strength in stripping the 
clothing from her own stiffening frame and wrapping it about her child 
and clasping the little bundle to her breast. Ah, brethren, the tight clasp 
of the dead arms, and those poor garments, so carefully wrapped, — surely 
they spake from the world beyond the grave, and told the last care in the 
dying mother's heart; and told how her last thoughts had been with the 
unconscious little one that never would remember or miss her! Now 
there is the type of God's love; not more tenderly did the dying woman 
yearn over the little thing that must go through life and she far away 
than does God over each soul; and the grand difference lies in this, that 
our heavenly Father has infinite power to do all we ask or need! — Boyd. 

"I Will Help Thee" (281). 
A clergyman who was contemplating accepting a call to a church, 
being still undecided, saw on the wall of the First Congregational Church 
in Buffalo, the text, "Fear not, I will help thee." He got off the car and 
went back to read the rest of the sentence, which was, "for the Lord, 
thy God, will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, 'Fear not, I will help 
thee.' " These words came to the young minister as from the mouth of 
God, guiding him in an important crisis of his life. — Rev. Edwin Whit- 
tier Caswell. 



XXXV. BUSINESS SUCCESS AND SOUL 
FAILURE. 

"Will a Man Rob God?"— Malachl 3:8. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

A writer in Success suggested the following results of a man's sut>- 
ceeding in business and yet failing in all the things of most importance 
In life. In seeming to rob God, he, in reality, robs himself. 

He was no greater than his occupation. 

He never learned to look on the sunny side. 

He stuffed his pocketbook but starved his brain. 

He had no use for sentiment that could not be cashed. 

He did not live in his upper stories, but in the basement of his being. 

He regarded his business as a means of making a living instead of 
a life. 

He never learned to enjoy little things, to see the uncommon in the 
common. 

He never learned to lubricate his life's machinery with laughter and 
good cheer. 

He lost his early friends by neglect, and had no time to cultivate 
new ones. 

He made life a grind, out of which he got neither pleasure, profit 
nor instruction. 

There was only one side of his nature developed, and that was the 
money-making side. 

The writer might have summed it all up by saying that he refused 
to honor God's claims upon him and thus forfeited all the best things 
of life and character. 

* * * 

In preaching on the theme, "It Pays to Give to God," Rev. Dr. Russell 
H. Conwell related the following incident: 

A man in Massachusetts, who had only one dollar in his pocket, and 
who wished to find work, went to the church and put fifty cents of that 
dollar in the box as an offering to God. Then with only fifty cents in his 
pocket, he went on hunting for work. He found an advertisement which 
said there were wanted laborers of his class in Marlborough, Massachu- 
setts. At the ticket office he found that the price of a ticket to Marl- 
borough was exactly a dollar, and that if he had the fifty cents back which 
he gave to the church he could have paid his fare and secured the work. 
Being unable to buy a through ticket, he decided to buy aB far as fifty 
cents would go and walk the rest of the way. So he left the cars at 
South Framingham and started to walk to Marlborough, on the country 
road. He approached a gentleman to Inquire the way, and the Kentleman 
told him that there was a man who wanted help in South Framingham. 
He went around the block and was given a salary of five dollars a week 
more than the other situation offered, and he is now himself one of the 
wealthy men of Massachusetts. He Is giving ten per cent of his Income 
regularly to the Lord s work, and this year he has concluded to build 



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with his ten per cent a sixty-thousand dollar shoe factory and give the 
entire Income of the factory to the employees. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Love's Gift Honored (282). 
Justinian had determined that the sole glory of erecting the cathedral 
was to be his; he had desired that the materials used were to be the best 
that could be obtained, the best methods were to be employed in using 
them, and everything was to be done at the expense of the Imperial 
purse. Over the western entrance was to be engraven the sentence "This 
House to God, Justinian, Emperor, gave." On the day appointed for the 
consecration Emperor and Patriarch, with a glittering retinue, proceeded 
in solemn pomp to the cathedral. On reaching the western door Jus- 
tinian stopped, amazed, for over it he beheld inscribed "This House to 
God, Euphrasia, Widow, gave!" The astonished Emperor angrily de- 
manded who had dared to place such an inscription over the doorway 
which was to have been adorned with his own name and fame? The 
bewildered architects, trembling, protested their innocence in the mat- 
ter, and could only suggest that the inscription must have been wrought 
by a miracle. Who the widow was no one could say; the very name was 
unknown. However, search was made, and an obscure woman of the 
name was discovered and dragged into the Emperor's presence. The 
legend has been charmingly versified by Rev. S. Baring Gould and we give 
its conclusion in his words: 

An aged woman, tottering, weak, 

With tattered dress, and thin white straying hair, 

Bending upon a stick and with feet bare. 

"Euphrasia," said the Monarch sternly, "speak! 

Wherefore didst thou my strict commandment break; 

Contributing, against my orders, to this pile?" 

The widow answered simply, with faint smile, 

"Sire, it was nothing, for I only threw 

A little straw before the beasts which drew 

The marble from the ships, before I knew 

Thou would'st be angry. Sire! I had been ill 

Three weary months, and on my window-sill 

A little linnet perched and sang each day 

So sweet, it cheered me as in bed I lay. 

And filled my heart with love to Him who sent 

The linnet to me; then, with full intent 

To render thanks, when God did health restore, 

I from a mattress pulled a little straw 

And cast it to the oxen — I did nothing more." 

"Look!" said Caesar; "read above that door! 

Small though thy gift, it was the gift of love, 

And is accepted by our King above; 

And mine rejected as the gift of pride 

By him who humble lived and humble died. 

Widow, God grant hereafter when we meet, 

I may attain a footstool at thy feet!" 

— The Nineteenth Century. 



BUSINESS SUCCESS AND SOUL FAILURE 185 



Using or Withholding (283). 

We did not grow our wheat fields. They are God's gift. But why? 
These billions spell power, but they spell responsibility also; and it is for 
you and me to say what use we are going to make of these golden talents 
which have been showered into our life. Are we going to waste them in 
riotous living, selfishness, and love of ease? Is it going to be written 
over our tombstone, "He was born a man, but he died a merchant" — 
manhood swallowed up by business? If we are impelled to send Jesue 
Christ's Gospel to all the world I say that this golden stream of money 
means that we can send it; we can do anything conditioned upon the 
power of money. Anything for the extension of the Kingdom of God that 
requires money, administrative capacity and ability, we can do, for we 
have them all. 

Now then, shall we use it? Some man may say to me, "Your figures 
are bewildering. They are taken from the census bureau of commerce, 
and labor in Washington. There are a lot of non-Christians in this world. 
Have the real Christians any of this money?" "Godliness is profitable unto 
7)1 things, having the promise of life that now is as well as that which is 
to come," and I do not suppose the intelligent and prudent and careful 
and industrious members of churches of this country have failed to get 
some of this wealth. I know they have not. Dr. Strong, In about the 
year 1890, in "Our Country," estimated that there were about thirteen 
billions of wealth then in the hands of the Christians. I estimate on the 
Bame basis that there cannot be less than twenty or twenty-five billions 
In the hands of the Christian men of North America today. So we have 
the money. 

Now, you will say to me, "You are not talking to business men, but to 
college students." Yes, but in a little while you will take a leading part 
in the commercial affairs of this nation, if I mistake not, in a very little 
while; and some of you will inherit a part of this money. What are 
you going to do with it? 

Dr. Schauffler once gave a definition of money, practical and popular. 
He said that money is just so much of yourself; that if you hire yourself 
out at ten dollars to a man and he gives you ten dollars at the end of 
the week and you put it in your pocket, you practically have ten dollarB 
of yourself in your pocket. That is a pretty clear-cut kind of a proposi- 
tion. All the money that we spend Is an expression of ourselves. With 
money and with brains we can multiply ourselves in every good work. 
Oh, what fairy tales, what wonderful changes, we could bring over the 
world if every one would spend money in some proportion for the good 
of the people. — Alfred C. Marling. 

The Liberal Soul Waxes Fat (284). 

Paul Gogan, of Montreal, Canada, was going down the coast of the 
St. Lawrence River, when he had given away all that he had to help poor 
people up In the woods. He was going out with a brave heart and strong 
hand to earn some more. As ho was seeking his way he saw upon the 
shore two chests of gold, washed up from the ship that had been wrecked 
there In the days of General Montcalm. That was God's treasure, put in 
his hand, and ho had plenty of money for his lifetime, and his children 



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still enjoy the fruits of it. That was God's gift put right before him— 
gift of gold. God does return gold a hundredfold to some who give to 
him. — Conwell. 

A Degrading View of Life (285). 

The mere piling up of wealth as an end in itself is a mistaken 
Ideal, if it be not a sin; but it is a form of insanity which is confined to 
the very few. Neither do men give respect to those who make it the 
ruling passion of their life. In the common speech of the people, little 
honor is ever given to men of the Rockefeller type; they are looked upon 
as abnormal creatures, machine-like, soul-atrophied, hardly human. For 
the great majority do not need so much reiteration of the truth 
that "the love of money (as money) is the root of all evil," but more 
need to reflect upon the saying of Shaw that "money is the source of all 
good," of health, comfort, life itself. Most of us are in little danger of 
being overburdened to our soul's degradation with an excess of wealth. 
We are in danger of being content with too narrow a standard of life 
which leaves our soul with all its infinite possibilities little chance for 
expansion. We need a prophet in these later days, not to denounce our 
luxurious covetousness, but to preach a divine discontent with a life so 
large in its possibilities, so pitifully cramped in its expression by our too 
easy contentment with the social average of our surroundings. Until 
money ceases to be means of satisfying legitimate and praiseworthy de- 
sires, the effort to attain it will remain a worthy object for those who 
wish to make their lives the fullest manifestation of their inherent possi- 
bilities. — Shearsmith. 

The Lesson of History (286). 

And what is the lesson of history save this, Palmyra is a heap, Tyre a 
ruin and Ephesus a desolation. What turned the walled city into ashes? 
Ephesus refused to obey the law of God, and cast off all restraint, and 
behold! Ephesus is not. Professor Creasy tells us about the decisive 
battles of history. And this is the sum of his ten lectures, all races are 
under divine guidance; those people that listen to the voice of God ad- 
vance rapidly, and those cities, like Carthage and Thebes, that refuse re- 
straint and rebel against his guidance are brought to desolation and ruin. 
God has thought out in advance his plan for each city and nation, and 
those that rebel are cast out of the universe where God rules and guides 
as supreme lord and king. That nation alone shall live that accepts the 
guidance and obeys the laws of an over-ruling God. — Hillis, 



XXXVI. GOD WITH US. 



"They shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted, Is, God 
with us."— Matt. 1:23. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Philip Wendell Crannell, in laying stress upon the marks of 
deity in Christ, said: In the analysis of Jesus we find at first the ele- 
ments of pure humanity. Perhaps at first, with most of his earlier dis- 
ciples, that is all we recognize; but soon we discover an uoclassifiable 
constituent, which exerts strange and wonderful effects. He is a man, 
plainly. But, plainly, he is man plus. Plus what? and plus how much? 
Plus purity beyond all; plus the God-consciousness beyond all; plus in- 
sight; plus power; plus love; plus a self-assertion at which we cannot 
grow offended; plus an unconsciousness of sin that seems not blindness, 
but impartial self-appraisal; plus a demand for submission which we are 
not compelled to obey, but we cannot deny; plus — what shall we say? — 
something that grips us with the compelling and mastering power of a 
Being whose right it is to rule and rule all, and forces us down upon our 
knees in an ecstasy of love and adoration as though that were the place 
for us, and no other place could be, or be desired. And, strangely enough, 
the reading of the Book by a wild English mutineer, or by a Japanese 
who picks it up watersoaked upon his country's coast, or by a lifelong 
unbeliever, and these after twenty centuries, brings the same results that 
contact with him did with men of his day; his face appears, grows, shines, 
glows, burns itself into the heart, which henceforth is his forever. What 
is this element we find in this man? Where else In all the universe is 
there a quality, and a drawing, and a compulsion and a mastery like this? 
Only in one place. Not in man, not in angel, not in seraph — up where He 
cits who In love and truth and power is above all; and we exclaim with 
Peter, "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God," perfectly showing 
forth God's every quality. 

* * r 

A noted English clergyman in preaching on this text, thus enforced 
Its great truth: 

Those of you who remember your Sir Thomas Malory's King Arthur 
will recollect the story he tells as to the way in which Arthur was dis 
covered and declared King of Britain. When Utherpendragon died he 
left apparently no heir, for Arthur, his only son by Igralne, had been 
smuggled away by Merlin as soon as ever he was born, and had lived In 
obscurity ever since. The realm therefore fell into great confusion, many 
of the great barons coveting the crown for themselves. Then the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, according to the old story, summoned all the 
barons and knights to London on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Day 
held services for them In London's greatest church. When they emerged 
from church, they saw In the churchyard a great square stone, and In the 
midst of this stone a steel anvil, and stuck into the steel anvil by Its 
point a naked and gleaming sword. And written on the sword In letters 
of gold were these words: "WhoBO pullcth out this sword out of this 



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stone and anvil, the same is rightwise king born of England." So one 
after another of the great lords who covered the kingdom tugged and 
pulled and strained, but not one of them was able to move the sword. 
And then came Arthur, the unknown son of a simple knight (as people 
thought him), and without effort or trouble pulled the sword out of its 
resting-place. At Candlemas, at Easter, and at Pentecost the process was 
repeated. Barons and knights came from far and near to try their 
strength upon that sword; but none prevailed save Arthur, and he always 
pulled it out easily. And then the people recognized that in the man 
whose hand was mighty enough to draw Excalibur from its sheath and 
wield it with consummate ease the King of England had been found. 

If I may use that old story to illustrate my present theme, this great 
and majestic name of Immanuel became the test which was applied to 
every one amongst the Jews who excited any hopes that he might be 
the promised deliverer. Did he answer to this name? What Excalibur 
was to those old British barons, this name was to all the great men who 
appeared in Israel. Whoso answereth to this name, the same is the Son 
of God and King of Israel. And none answered to it until Jesus came. 
He was not at all the kind of person men expected. They objected to 
him, as those old British barons did to Arthur, that he was of humble 
birth and lowly parentage; they said that no good thing could come out 
of Nazareth. But, for all that, he and he alone answered to the name; 
he and he alone fulfilled the name. Hezekiah, Josiah, Nehemiah, Judas 
the Maccabee, all fell short; but Jesus answered and fulfilled every ex- 
pectation. The name fitted him like a glove. So candid and open souls 
— like Nathanael and Matthew greeted him as the promised Saviour, the 
King of Israel, because in him was fulfilled that which was spoken by the 
prophet, saying: "Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bring 
forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which is, being inter- 
preted, God with us." This great faith about Christ was born of their 
experience of him. Just exactly as Arthur proved his prowess by easily 
drawing and wielding Excalibur, so Jesus made the men and women 
about him feel he was Immanuel by the words he spoke and the deeds 
he did. He produced the sense of God within them; he did the works 
of God upon them. It was because they had found God in him that they 
were sure and certain that Isaiah's great word found its fulfillment and 
satisfaction in Jesus. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Christ's Revelation of the Father (287). 
The brilliant Madame de Stael said, "If the Founder of Christianity 
had done no more than to say, 'Our Father which art in heaven,' he 
would have conferred an inestimable boon upon man." To the revelation 
of God's fatherhood he added the great conception of human brotherhood, 
and taught man the infinite possibility of development in blessedness 
under the inspiration of the divine ideal of greatness. 

The masterful man, the one able to resolve all difficulties, to mow 
down all opposition, to bend all forces to the realization of his own 
desire, was the world's ideal of greatness. To conquer, to reign, by what- 
ever means, fair or foul, was the legitimate goal of human ambition and 



GOD WITH US 



189 



the evident token of greatness. The vicarious principle of life taught by 
Jesus Christ in precept and example was a complete reversal of the 
world's judgment. The spirit of sacrifice which was manifest on occasion 
among the ancients was the original, permanent, underlying motive of his 
life. We search the records of the past in vain for any adequate expres- 
sion of this motive. — Rev. Charles A. Lippincott. 

"A God Who Does Something" (288). 

In a conversation with Thomas Carlyle, Mr. Froude once said: "I 
can only believe in a God who does something." With a cry of pain, 
Carlyle answered: "But he does nothing!" No wonder Carlyle was a 
pessimist! God is forever in his world. Before Christ came God was in 
his world. "My Father worketh even until now," said Jesus. God is still 
in his world — "Not a sparrow falls to the ground without your Father." 
But all history bears witness that something overwhelmingly great and 
mighty took place in Palestine about nineteen hundred years ago. The 
birth of Christ in Bethlehem is the very hinge of history. Before his com- 
ing was ancient history; after him is modern history. As Ernest Renan 
said: "To tear his name from this world would be to rend it to its 
foundation." 

Jesus gave to the world the highest truth concerning God. From 
all eternity his home had been in the bosom of the Father; from the 
Father he came to make truth known to man. As is a man's thought of 
God, so will his whole life be. The Psalmist had said: "The Lord is my 
Shepherd." He had said more than that; he had sung: 
"Like as a father pitieth his children, 
So the Lord pitieth them that fear him." 

But Jesus taught even more than that; he said: "God is not only 
like a father, God is a father; and he pities not only them that fear him, 
but most of all them that fear him not." "When ye pray, say, Our 
Father" — this is the central truth of the Christian religion. We build all 
theology upon and around this idea. Its influence in history is greater 
than can be estimated; it is appreciated today more than ever before; 
and it will more and more influence our thinking and control our lives. 

There had been kindness in the world before Jesus came; Jesus won- 
derfully broadened and deepened it JeBus gave sight to the blind and 
hearing to the deaf and strength to the weak. "He went about doing 
good." Jesus cast out devils, and through the influence of Jesus asylums 
have been built where unfortunate sufferers are kindly nursed and scien- 
tifically treated. Poor lepers used to be driven out from the abode of men 
to find miserable shelter among the tombs. Jesus touched the lepers with 
his hands. 

The Incarnation (289). 

The qualities we attribute to Deity must be Incarnated If we are to 
be molded by them. His wisdom and strength are seen in nature. His 
domestic perfectness is seen in Jesus, who was "born of a woman, born 
under the law." He entered our estate as the partner and the friend of 
whatever Is our lot. That plain statement satisfied St. Paul and It sat- 
isfies me. Curiosity may desire to know more, but even when laudable 
It must know its limitations. The permanent blesElngs of the Birth are 



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not affected by it. We have also been born of woman, and under the 
law that regulates human being. For us, as for him, the sanctity of 
motherhood and infancy is supreme. For us, as for him, the path of duty 
leads to the door of death and death to mansions of the just. — S. Parkea 
Cadman, D.D. 

God With Us, God For Us (290). 
A great minister, who was noted for his Christ-like spirit, as well as 
for his consecrated ability, dreamed that he had died and stood at the 
gate of heaven knocking for admission. He gave his name, only to be 
told that his name did not appear upon the books. At last, after earnest 
entreaty, he was bidden to enter and was told he would have the privi- 
lege of appearing before the judge of all the earth, and if he could stand 
his test he might abide in heaven forever. Standing before the throne, 
he gave his name, and the following questions were put to him: "Have 
you led a righteous life?" And he said, "No." "Have you always been 
kind and gentle?" Again he replied in the negative. "Have you always 
been forgiving to those who have been around you?" "Alas, no, I have 
miserably failed here." "Have you always been honest and just?" And 
he answered, "I fear not." As question after question was put to him 
by the judge, his case seemed more and more hopeless. The last ques- 
tion was asked him, and to that, too, he was obliged to give the same 
negative reply. Just when he seemed to be in despair, the brightness 
about the throne became brighter, and suddenly he heard a voice sweeter 
than a mother's voice. The speaker said: "My Father, I know this 
man. It is true that he was weak in many ways, but he stood for me 
in the world, and I take his place before thee." Just as the last words of 
the sentence were spoken, the dream was over, and the man awoke; but 
he had his lesson, and it is a lesson for us all. We have in ourselves 
no standing before God, It must be in Christ. — J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. 



XXXVII. REPENTANCE FRUITAGE. 



"Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance." — Matthew 3:8. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
Henry Ward Beecher presented the following analysis of this theme 
In one of his earlier sermons: 

I. Repentance is not a formal or technical thing. It is simply an 
operation of the human mind in regard to«evil things — putting spurs to 
the zeal of men, in going away from evil and towards good. Repentance 
therefore, is merely an abandonment of evil things, in order that one may 
reach after better and higher things. The degree of repentance essential 
is just that which is necessary to make you let go of mischief and evil. 
Just as soon as you know enough of the evil of sin to let it alone, or to 
turn away from it with your whole strength, you have repentance enough. 
Deep and abundant convictions are beneficial in certain natures, because 
in these natures only such sensuous and wrestling experiences will avail, 
since they are coarse-fibred, since they rank low morally, and since, there- 
fore, they need rasping. But if they are more nobly strong, if their moral 
nature is more sensitive, if they can turn from evil on a slighter sugges- 
tion, is it not better? For men ought to repent easily. It is a sin and a 
shame for them to repent reluctantly and grudgingly. 

II. The highest form of repentance is a turning away from bad to 
good on account of that imperfect love which belongs to us In our phys- 
ical and earthly relations; for we seldom find men who have the pure 
and spiritual impulse of love toward God so strong as to act as a dis- 
suasion from evil and a persuasion toward good until they have actually 
been drawn into a divine life. 

III. Repentance may be a secondary impulse for some special intent 
or struggle, or it may become a dominant influence, acting through long 
periods, and renewing and refreshing itself continually. 

IV. From this great law no one can escape. There is not a man 
who does not need this primary experience, this turning to a higher life 
from the animal life; and there is no man who was born with such qual- 
ities, with such a balance of all the attributes of the soul, that he stands 
disengaged from the great law of repentance of everything that is evil, 
and of aspiration toward all that Is good. 

* * * 

Dwight L. Moody in one of his notable sermons on Repentance, 
which was instrumental in Influencing multitudes to brln,g forth its fruits, 
Btated its salient features as follows: 

Say, as the poor thief did, "Lord, remember me." That was his 
golden opportunity, and the Lord heard and answered and saved him. 
Did not Bartlmeus call on him while he was near? Christ was passing 
by Jericho for the last time, and he cried out, "Thou Son of David, have 
mercy on me." And did not the Lord hear his prayer, and give him hla 
sight? Do you believe the Lord will call a poor sinner, and then cast him 
Dut? No! his word stands for ever, "Him that cometu to me I will In no 
wiae cast out." 



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At the Fulton Street prayer-meeting a man came in, and this was his 
Btory. He said he had a mother who prayed for him; he was a wild, 
reckless prodigal. Some time after his mother's death he began to be 
troubled. He thought he ought to get into new company, and leave his old 
companions. So he said he would go and join a secret society; he thought 
he would join the Odd Fellows. They went and made inquiry about him, 
and they found he was a drunken sailor, so they black-balled him. They 
would not have him. He went to the Freemasons; he had nobody to rec- 
ommend him, so they inquired and found there was no good in his char- 
acter, and they too black-balled him. They didn't want him. One day, 
some one handed him a little notice in the street about the prayer-meet- 
ing, and he went in. He heard that Christ had come to save sinners. He 
took him at his word; and, in reporting the matter, he said he "came to 
Christ without a character, and Christ hadn't black-balled him." 

My friends, that is Christ's way. Is there a man here without a char- 
acter, with nobody to say a good word for him? I bring you good news. 
Call on the Son of God and he will hear you. Call on him tonight. 

* * * 

Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D., in one of his strongest evangelistic 
sermons on Repentance, described it in these words: 

Repentance is sorrow for sin — at least, that is, part of it. Sorrow for 
sin because other people are hurt. I know of a man who lived in the 
state of New York. He was a brilliant lawyer, a university man who be- 
came addicted to strong drink. He had all but killed his wife and chil- 
dren, and one day his little boy ran to my friend the minister, and said, 
"Come as quickly as you can. Father is drunk again." And my friend 
rushed through the streets with the boy and reached the door of the 
hovel only to find a woman standing there with a white face. She said 
to my friend, "Sir, he is dead." And the little fellow ran up and threw 
his arms round his mother's waist and said, "Mother, aren't you glad? 
aren't you glad?" I told that story in Sydney, Australia, and the next 
day a young lawyer met me on the street and said, "That story of yours 
is not fanciful. My father is a judge in Sydney, and if at this moment I 
should hear that he was dead I would get on the tram car and go out to 
the edge of the city and I would take my old gray-haired mother in my 
arms and say, 'Mother, he is dead. No more heart-aches, no more blows, 
no more anguish, as you wait for him.' " 

Remorse on account of sin is also a part of repentance. Remorse 
because sin hurts yourself. Repentance is also contrition, because sin is 
against God. 

But you must put all these together. Sorrow for sin, remorse on ac- 
count of sin, contrition because of sin. Then what else? Do what the 
prodigal did. Say this, "I will arise and go + o my father." He arose and 
went. That is repentance. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Restitution (291). 
A conscience-stricken citizen of Fullerton, Cal., has written to the 
Post Office Department as follows: 



REPENTANCE FRUITAGE 



19a 



"Post Office Department, Washington, D. C: 

"Dear Sirs: — Several years ago I used a few stamps that had heen 
used once and hadn't been canceled. Now I am trying to live right and 
wish to straighten up all my back tracks, so will send 10 cents to pay for 
them. Am sorry I did it." The ten cents have been added to the miscel- 
laneous postal receipts. 

Sorrow for Sin (292). 
A good many years ago a German prince visited the arsenal of 
Toulon, where a large number of men, condemned for different crimes, 
were working as galley slaves. The prince was told that, in compliment 
to hiB visit, he was allowed to free one of them. He inquired of first one, 
then another, the cause of his punishment. Each declared that he had 
been unjustly accused, or wrongfully arrested, till he came to a fine, big 
man with a sorrowful face. He confessed what he had done, and said, 
"I acknowledge It, it grieves me, and I deplore it." Turning to the offi- 
cers, the prince exclaimed, "This is the man for whose release I make 
request. He is the first I have found who feels he has done wrong and 
has anything to be forgiven." Does God ever have to say to us, "Behold, 
I will plead with thee, because thou sayest, I have not sinned?" — W. F. 
Crafts. 

Repentance — How and Why? (293). 

How shall you try to repent? Think over the abominableness of 
your sin? Yes; that Manchester surgeon, before anesthetics were in- 
vented, gave wise counsel to his patient: "Take a long, last look at your 
hideous death-working sore and then fix your eyes on me, and do not 
take them off till I am done." 

Meditate upon the kindness of God? Certainly; the Scripture asks. 
"Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long- 
suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repent- 
ance?" Jeremiah's figure of a love match between the believer and God 
is recalled and the Ephesian Christian is represented as having left his 
first love. A husband and wife have drifted apart. What an age since 
he took her in his arms and said: "You are the dearest creature in all 
the world!" Maybe one of them begins to recall the old love-making 
days and revives experiences of deep affection. Then lover-like atten- 
tions and devotion are repeated, soon tenderness and forgiveness-asking 
and pardon-granting have come. You commence again where you have 
commenced to be a Christian, sing the hymns you sang; read the Scrip- 
ture you read; bring back the covenant with God, the hatred of sin and 
love of the Saviour. 

If you should not repent, what then? "Repent, and do the first 
works, or else I will come unto thee quickly and remove thy candlestick 
out of its place, except thou repent." Repentlessness spells uselessness 
and uselessness spells removal. Dare the Revelator intimate that the 
church at Ephesus, founded by Apollos the eloquent, and ministered to 
throe years by Paul and written to by him, dare anyone intimate the col- 
lapse of that Church? 

"Repent" — be righteous, be useful, or away goes thy candlestick! 
Which Ephesian could fancy Ephesus dead — Ephesus, a thousand years 
old? Ephesus, situated by sea and river and fertile plain unsurpassed, the 



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Queen of Asiatic cities! My wife and I stood amidst the ruins of Ephe- 
eus, and on the excavated foundations of Diana's Temple. Not a soul 
dwelt within a mile, and at that distance only a yakaluk of the wretched 
folk. The sea was a half day's journey from the place, the silt of the 
river Cayster having pushed it back. The opulent valley that one time 
laughed with harvests was a miasmatic swamp. Ephesian Church and 
Ephesus, where are ye? Answer Mount Caressus, sentineling for cen- 
turies this silent site of the ancient city! Flung from bleak Caressus, 
hear the sentence for Ephesus by the Cayster and the sea, and for New 
York by the Hudson and the sea, and for every man and woman and 
child: "Repent, and do the first works, or else I will come unto thee 
quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou 
repent." — Rev. S. Edward Young, D.D. 

Self Detestation (294). 

The disposition to justify one's self, to minimize our sin, to palliate 
our guilt, to excuse our wrong, is sure evidence of a wrong heart. It is a 
manifestation of human pride. It is proof that the one who does so has 
not in any wise as yet repented. David had not a word to say in his favor 
when he pleaded for forgiveness before Jehovah (Psa. 51); the prodigal 
son had not a shadow of an excuse for his conduct; and Paul, though he 
recognized the mitigating circumstances of his ignorance and unbelief, 
never spoke of his guilt but in the darkest and most awful terms, and 
his sense of unworthiness seemed to grow in proportion with his appre- 
ciation of God's grace. It is only to such a frame of mind that God's 
forgiving mercy can really come, — Selected, 



XXXVIII. TEMPTATIONS: CHRIST'S 
AND OURS. 



"Then was Jesus led up Into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil."— 
Matthew 4:1. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. A. W. Benson summarized the lessons of this incident as 
follows: 

1. The three forms of temptation which Christ endured and over 
which he triumphed, are the same in substance to which all men are now 
exposed. They are covetousness, pride, and ambition. They will always 
assail us through three sources; through our wants, through spiritual de- 
lusions, through worldly prospects and hopes. They can only be repelled 
by the truths of the Bible. Christ's example is left us for imitation. "It 
is written," is the Christian's sword. A good knowledge of the Word of 
God is our best protection. "Thy Word have I hid in mine heart that I 
might not sin against thee." (Psa. 119:11). "By the word of Thy lips I 
have kept me from the path of the destroyer." (Psa. 17:4). 

II. We have no right to the promises of God, and we can claim 
none, when we are on Satan's territory and carrying out his suggestions. 
Divine promises hold good only to those who meet danger in the path 
of duty. Where God sends a man there he will protect him, but not oth- 
erwise. If we are brought face to face with a duty to which the Lord 
has led us, we may confidently expect him to sustain us and not be disap- 
pointed! Knowing our weakness Christ has taught us to pray, "Lead us 
not into temptation." Let us not then be puffed up and think that we can 
stand where others fall! Christ's victory in the second form of the 
temptation shows the just limit that separates confidence and presump- 
tion. 

III. Never does the devil lie more outrageously than when he prom- 
ises. What had he to give? All he had of the world to give was its 
pride and vain show, its guilt and suffering, its despair and death. The 
temptation which seemed plausible on the outside, on a closer view is 
found to contain within it a deadly sting. In like manner all of Satan's 
golden promises to us contain in them the germs of their own destruction. 
If we love the world it will forsake us (1 John 2:17); if we love money 
we will find it the root of all evil (I Tim. 6:10); if we love iniquity in 
any form, we will find that the wages of sin Is death (Rom. 6:23). 

* * * 

Rev. F. B. Meyer emphasized the following applications: 1. Your 
temptations are not an uncommon experience. — We have all the same 
constitution; and there Is much more similarity in our temptations than 
we suppose. 'There hath no temptation taken you but such &s is com- 
mon to man.' 'The same afflictions are accomplished In your brethren 
that are In the world.' 

2. All temptation Is under the restraint of God. — As In the case of 
Job, Satan cannot tempt us without God being first acquainted with his 



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designs. And, as in the case of Peter, there seems to be almost a seek- 
ing and receiving of permission to tempt before Satan assails. In any 
case, no temptation befalls us greater than our power to combat and 
overcome. And we are permitted to be tempted, that we may learn to 
avail ourselves of the resources of which we might otherwise be unaware. 

3. Satan can be conquered. — Watch and pray. Be sober in your 
tastes and habits, in your words and deeds. Never neglect to abide in 
your strong fortress, Christ. Keep with the flock of God. Nourish your 
souls with the Word, that you may be healthy and strong. Gird on the 
whole armor of God. Resist the first insignificant advances of the foe. 
Be steadfast in the faith. Look instantly to Jesus to cast the panoply of 
his protection around you; and to stand between you and your assail- 
ant, as a shield before the body of the warrior. Resist the devil, and he 
will flee from you. Go into battle assured of success: this your talisman, 
They overcame by the blood of the Lamb; this your battlecry, Jesus 
saves, Jesus saves. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. John Watson (Ian Maclaren) said on this text: 
If it be any comfort to a man fighting hard, bloodstained and dusty, 
let him know that every one shares with him the risk and travail of con- 
flict. The fine saint was tempted only yesterday by wicked thoughts; 
and last week that woman was wrestling with doubts about the existence 
of God. Temptation is not a calamity of one period of life, or of one type 
of character; it is a human discipline — a tribulation through which we must 
all pass before we enter into the fullness of the Kingdom. Read the lives 
of the Bible heroes, or any other honest biography you can come across, 
and mark that the best men have been as soldiers, fighting till the 
trumpet sounded recall, and lying down to rest in their dinted armor. 
History affords us only one perfectly good man, and he was the most 
fiercely tempted of us all. Upon the occasion of our text, first to selfish- 
ness, next to presumption, and lastly to blasphemy; nor was this the 
only attack in his life, for there are a hundred signs that always he was 
resisting till he could finally say, "Not my will, but thine, be done," 
which was the moment of victory. Let no man say that Christ's tempta- 
tion was not real, nor such as besets other men, for this is to make the 
life of our master into a vain show, and to take from his disciples the 
heartening comfort of Jesus' sympathy, and the triumphant strength of 
the Master's will. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Penalty or Opportunity (295). Temptations are of two kinds — those 
that come as penalty, and those that lie in opportunity. — Stimson. 

How He Overcame (296). 
Shortly after conversion, one night, on a Christian's return from a 
meeting where he had been speaking and dealing with inquirers up to a 
late hour, it seemed as though a voice spoke in his soul, "You have been 
preaching tonight about the joy of being a Christian. Where is your joy? 
You know you do not feel a bit of joy. You have not a bit of feeling 
of love now in your heart to Christ. You are a hypocrite and not saved at 
all. You had better just give this all up." 



TEMPTATIONS: CHRIST'S AND OURS 



197 



It seemed very dark to him for a minute. It was all true, as far as 
his feelings were concerned. He was so mentally exhausted that a reac- 
tion had set in. But presently he reached for his Bible and opened to 
John 5:24, the verse that had been used to bring him to Christ and read, 
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on 
him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condem- 
nation hut is passed from death unto life." Then, thanking God that the 
Word had not gone, though his feelings had, he says, "I just held the Bible 
with my finger on that verse, and told the devil to just look at that, and 
go away and leave me alone; and he did. I went to bed in peace." — 
Selected. 

How He Met the Devil (297). 

One of the happiest men I ever knew was a man in Dundee, Scot- 
land, who had fallen and broken his back when a boy of fifteen. He had 
lain on his bed for about forty years, and could not be moved without a 
good deal of pain. Probably not a day had passed in all those years 
without acute suffering. But day after day the grace of God had been 
granted him, and when I was in his chamber it seemed as if I was as 
near heaven as I could get on earth. When I saw him I 
asked him: "Doesn't Satan ever tempt you to doubt God and 
to think that he is a hard master?" "Oh, yes," he said, "he 
does try to tempt me. I lie here and see my old school- 
mates driving along in their carriages, and Satan says, 'If God is so good, 
why does he keep you here all these years? You might have been a rich 
man, riding in your carriage.' Then I see a man who was young when I 
was, walk by in perfect health and Satan whispers, 'If God loved you, 
couldn't he have kept you from breaking your back?' " "And what do you 
do when 8atan tempts you?" "Ah, I just take him to Calvary, and I show 
him Christ, and I point out those wounds in his hands and feet and side, 
and say, "Doesn't he love me?' and the fact is he got such a scare there 
eighteen hundred years ago that he cannot stand it; he leaves me every 
time." That bedridden saint had not much trouble with doubts; he was 
too full of the grace of God. — Moody. 

Doubtful Short Cuts (298). 
When I think of the long road that Jesus trod, round by the villages 
and through the Garden, and on to the Cross, and into the grave; "I feel 
that short cuts are not God's. Do you want to be prosperous? There is 
no short cut to that, consistent with Christian principle and God. A gen- 
tleman said that his strongest temptation was when the devil took him up 
Into an exceeding high mountain and showed him ten per cent. And 
there is no short cut to joy, nor to Christian character; you must go 
round by the desert to that Canaan. Be patient. Do not be showy, 
flashy. Hold to it dogRedly, In the dark, and go ahead. And though the 
way be strangely roundabout, full of mistake and struggle and secret cry. 
It will emerge, In the good time of God, into the land that flows with 
milk and honey. — Rev. G. H. Morrison. 

Satan's Lies (299). 
Sin never keeps Its promise. Max Mullor says of the Hebrew and 
Greek words translated sin: "There lies in these etymologies the deep 



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conviction that man in sinning has never attained what he sought; that 
Bin is essentially a delusion and a fraud." The word most used means 
"to miss the mark." Start a youth toward happiness by a path of sin and 
he is sure to miss the mark. The archer bending the bow of wrong doing 
and shooting the arrow of iniquity will not strike the target of well- 
being. 

Sin is sham, delusion, fraud. Crossing Texas I saw a mirage. This 
desert phenomenon is real in that it has the appearance of water; it is 
unreal in that it is not what it seems. Had the tourist seen a fainting 
man struggling toward the mirage for water, he would have hastened to 
explain the optical illusion as a sham, delusion, fraud. Not dissimilar is 
sin. Every sinner is deceived. Men follow strong drink in hopes of 
quenching thirst, but fall, finally, with parched lips and burning brain. 
Women search for pleasure and find pain, because they follow sin. 

Dallying With Temptation (300). 

Do not stop to parley with the tempter, as many a one has been 
ruined in this way. 

A young western farmer who had frequented the village bar-room, 
was converted to temperance principles, but on his visits to the village 
still continued to tie his team to the hotelman's hitching-post. The 
trained and watchful eye of a good old deacon noticed this, and after 
congratulating the youth upon his conversion, he said, "George, I am a 
good deal older than you, and will be pardoned, I know, if I make a sug- 
gestion out of my wider Christian experience. No matter how strong you 
think you are, take my advice and at once change your hitching-post" 
Christ made no mistake when he said, "Watch!" — Charles R. Ross. 

Avoiding Temptation (301). 

Madame de Lambert remarked on the tragedies of Corneille: "The 
best often give you lessons of virtue, and leave you with the impressions 
of vice." Serious men and women are as culpable who indulge so freely 
in the narotics of the mind as the wanton who eats opium for the sake 
of knowing what dreams it creates. We cannot luxuriate in our leisure 
hours amid garish, poison-flowers and heavy scents of voluptuousness 
without injury to our moral health and spiritual life. — Watkinson. 



XXXIX. HEART PURITY. 



"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall 6ee God." — Matthew 5:8. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. J. H. Jowett developed the text in this way: What is the 
significance of this purity which is the condition of the most radiant 
beatitude? Perhaps if we seek analogies in nature, and see the use of 
the word in some remote relationships, it may help us to clarify our con- 
ception of what a life is like that is pure in the sight of God. Here then 
is a land that has been purged of monsters. The beast has been driven 
out. We have a vivid description of the emancipation in one of the earlier 
"Idylls of the King." The beasts would creep down to the homesteads 
and steal and destroy. A crusade was appointed for the destruction of 
the destroyer, and the land was cleared of its foes. Now such an area, 
rid of the masterful beast, was a purified realm. And surely in the fields 
of the soul there are beasts of prey. There is the lion of passion, the 
serpent of envy, the bear of boorishness, the fox of deceit, and many 
others which find their home and their sustenance in the holy place. 

And to get rid of these beasts, to "let the ape and tiger die," would 
be to create a condition in human life which would reflect one charac- 
teristic of the purified state. 

Let me take another analogy. Water that is free from all sediment, 
that is clear and transparent, reflecting every pebble on the river 
bed, could be described as pure. And here, too, I may find suggestion 
of the purified life. The soul that is clean and clear in the sight of God 
has nothing dubious about its character, has nothing hiding in the folds 
of duplicity. The character is transparent like the sea of glass which 
the great seer gazed upon before the throne of God and the Lamb. 

Take another usage of the word. When the farmer has gathered 
out the stones from a field, when dead roots and fibers have been re- 
moved, when all injurious growths have been extirpated, the farmer de- 
scribes the cleansed area as "clean." To "clean" the land Is to rid it of 
everything dead or alive that is the enemy of fruitful growth. And so 
It is with the heart of man. To purify it is to uproot the evil things 
that suck and drain the good things of their purposed nutriment. And 
there are dead things that have to bo gathered out. And there are pois- 
onous things which must be given no mercy. There are prejudices 
stretching through the soil with roots like wire. All these have to be 
removed before the heart can be described as pure. 

"Like unto pure gold." Hero Is another usage of the word. It Is 
descriptive of gold In which there Is no alloy, no adulteration. The 
thing Is what It appears to be. It Is true gold In its untampered sim- 
plicity. So Is It with a pure heart. No baser stuff Is allowed to mlnglo 
with Its truth. No cheapening compromise gains an entry. No bits of 
worldllnoss are permitted to Intrude Into pioty and devotion. There Is no 
attempt to mix God and man. Life is Blmplo and single, "like unto pure 
gold." 



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Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott unfolds the deeper meaning of this in these 
illuminating sentences : 

To the pure in heart, proof of a God seems as idle as proof of a 
mother to a child clasped in its mother's arms, or proof of love to the two 
lovers who have just plighted their troth to each other. To such all argu- 
ment of the question, Does God answer prayer? seems as idle as to a 
child would seem the question whether he can talk to his father or not. 
Prayer is not a message by wireless telegraphy to some unknown sta- 
tion, remote, invisiblle, from which some wireless answer may return. 
Prayer is not a check presented at a bank calling for money to be paid 
out over the counter at sight or after three days or thirty days of wait- 
ing. Prayer is the communion of spirit with spirit. The answer is a 
new inspiration of courage to meet danger; of patience to take up anew 
the burden of life; of hope to exorcise the spirit of despair. To one who 
thus sees God and communes with God the companionship of the Great 
Companion is the most real, the most intimate, the most certain experi- 
ence of his life. Into this companionship with God the soul comes not by 
much study, but by high and holy living. We understand our neighbor 
only as we feel what he feels, and purpose what he purposes. We under- 
stand God only as we are at one with him. Not to intellectual acumen, 
not to great scholarship, but to purity of intention and purity of imagi- 
nation, to singleness of purpose, cleanness of thought and tenderness 
of feeling, is God revealed. We come to the vision of him as we grow 
into oneness with him by purposing what he purposes. If it is true that 
we shall be like him when we see him as he is, it is true also that we 
Bee him as he is only as we are like him. "Ye are," says Paul, "the 
temple of God; and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. If anyone shall 
corrupt the temple of God, him shall God bring to corruption." Whatever 
drives God out of his temple destroys the temple and makes it a com- 
mon edifice. It is God's temple only when God dwells in it, and God 
dwells in it only when in aspiration if not actual realization, in strong 
desire if not always in successful accomplishment, the temple is pure. 

Preaching on "Purity Its Own Protection," Rev. Dr. David Gregg 
emphasized the following: A holy personality is its own safeguard. It 
is self-assertive, and by self-assertion it creates its own atmosphere, and 
pickets itself with its own ideals. All sin is afraid of it and shuns it. 

This idea of the protecting power of a holy personality is not a new 
Idea. It is both old and universal. When a man has learned to love 
what God loves and hate what God hates, his safety is like that of God 
himself. This is what the old masters in art and painting and sculpture 
have been teaching the world. In these works of art they have aimed 
to produce soul and personality; and soul and personality at their best. 
A friend of mine writes from Paris just after he has seen some of these 
masterpieces: "I stood in the Louvre, where is the Venus de Milo and 
also the Sleeping Greek Slave. The slave is majestic in quantity and 
quality of being. He is a slave, true, but he is still a Greek — a Greek 
soul, a Greek personality. There is in him the possibility of power un- 
fathomable; and yet he is as tender. A lion is in him and a dove also. 
It ia not easy to find a man of fine quality and of great size combined, 



HEART PURITY 



201 



The Venus with Its womanly purity and ideality is as grand as the Greek 
Slave. I asked a young man, somewhat tempted by Parisian life, who 
was looking at these works of art: 'If these people were turned out to 
wander around the world, would they come back dissipated?' His answer 
was, 'They would come back without the smell of fire upon them.' 'How 
do you know?' He replied, 'Look at them. They are too great to be 
tempted.' But said I, 'They are to be free from family police; they are 
to be subjected to all the temptations of modern luxury.' 'They would 
come back with not a single hair singed.' 'How do you know?' 
'Look at them. They are too great to stoop. They are full- 
orbed.' That young man was no philosopher, he was simply a person 
of good practical instinct; but he felt that nothing can make a man 
act against reason and conscience and love and the indwelling divine. 
The whole make-up of such a man is against this." Yes, yes, that is it. 
A holy personality is its own safeguard. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

In Training (302). 

"That," said a sophomore, in one of our colleges to a visitor, "is John 
Black." He pointed to a wiry, muscular young fellow, who, in boating 
costume, was making his way to the riverside. "He is going to take a 
pull on the stream for an hour. He is completely in the hands of his 
trainer now." 

"And what does his trainer do for him?" asked the visitor. 

"He regulates his whole day. John gets out of bed at a certain 
minute every morning; he exercises with Indian clubs; is rubbed down, 
runs a couple of miles on the course; takes a cold bath; is rubbed down 
again; and so on until night. Every mouthful he eats is prescribed by 
the trainer. The day is strictly divided into hours for exercise, for rest, 
for bathing and for hard work. The life he leads is as hard as the life 
of a galley-slave." 

"Why does he do it?" 

"He is to run against the college champion. He must put himself 
In training If he wants to win the prize." 
"What is the prize?" 
"A gold medal." 

The visitor was also a young man. He did not want to run or Jump 
or row for a prize, but he had a great ambition to live a high, noble, 
helpful life. 

It occurred to him now that he had not been working so hard to 
that end as this other boy was working for a gold medal. When his 
companion left him, he walked on alone, and he made a resolution. He 
would put his soul in training. Every morning he would give an hour to 
bis Bible, and seek to bring his thoughts and motives Into comparison 
with the thoughts and motives of Christ. 

He would then exercise his Judgment as this athlete did his body. 
For Instance, In the circle of his family and friends, his thoughts were 
likely to be harsh and censorious, for he was naturally a severe Judge. 
But he would compel himself to find some good feature In each charao- 
ter, to look at his friends through Its kindly light. 



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The runner gave part of the day to climbing a steep mountain III 
the neighborhood; he thus gained power and health by the muscular 
exercise and by breathing purer air than that of the town. 

He, too, would try to leave behind the gossip, the trivialities, the 
coarseness on the dead level of his daily life, and climb to the height 
of some noble thought, or of some great truth of science. 

Moreover, as the daily bath was necessary for the body of the 
athlete, so must it be for the soul. He would seek to cleanse it of the 
impurities that might originate within, or be gathered by contact with 
the world from without. 

Why, he thought, if this youth puts his body in such severe training 
to gain a coveted honor in his college life, shall I not train my soul to 
win a life that is gentle and true and merciful, and that takes hold of 
"the life to come?" — Presbyterian of the South. 

Emptied for God's Filling (303). 

There is an old Dutch picture of a little child dropping a cherished 
toy from its hands; we wonder why, until at the corner of the picture 
we see a white dove winging its flight toward the emptied outstretched 
hands. Similarly we are prepared to forego a good deal when once we 
catch sight of spiritual acquisitions which beckon to us. And this is 
the true way to reach consecration and surrender. 

The old Hebrew word for consecration means "to fill the hand." There 
will not be much trouble in getting men to empty their hands of wood, 
hay and stubble if they see that there is a chance of filling them with 
treasures. The world pities us because it sees only what we give up; 
but it would withhold its sympathy if it could see how much we receive 
— good measure, pressed do"wn and running over, given into our bosom. — 
Selected. 

Heart-Keeping (304). 

Don't you see how you and I become like the things we think about? 
If we let our mind be a caravansary for all sorts of evil thoughts, we 
shall become evil. If we fix our mind upon worldly things, we shall be- 
come worldly. If we fix our mind upon things that are above, where 
Christ is, we shall become like Christ. — I. E. Roberts. 

The Higher Path (305). 

As I walked back and forth a mile and a half across the beautiful 
island of Tashiro, visiting and speaking at the schools at either end, I 
found that there are two paths across from town to town, the lower and 
the higher. With either you get to your destination, but the paths are 
so different. The lower is more traveled, has more ups and downs, and 
is more crooked. The higher requires more climbing to get to it, but 
it is straighter, quieter, more level, and it takes you to the top of every- 
thing and gives you magnificent scenery on every side, islands and sea 
dotted with ships. 

As I walked this higher path, it seemed to me to be a type of the 
higher spiritual path, with its wider vision and its deeper experiences 
with God, not so much traveled and having a harder climb to get to it. 
But then the joy of it. — Woodworth. 



HEART PURITY 



203 



The Inner Self (306). 
It Is this shrouded inner self to which supreme care is to be directed. 
All noble ethical teaching concurs in this — that a man who seeks to be 
right must keep, in the sense both of watching and of guarding, his inner 
self. Conduct is more easily regulated than character — and less worth 
regulating. It avails little to plant watchers on the stream half way to 
the sea. Control must be at the source if it is to be effectual. — Alexander 
MacLaren. 

The Standard (307). 
Corot said: "When I find myself in one of Nature's beautiful places, 
I grow angry with my pictures." Pleased with them in his studio, in 
sight of the glory of the world the artist was humbled. We may be con- 
tent with ourselves, comparing ourselves with ourselves, but in the pres- 
ence of the purity and beauty of the Lord we are rebuked. — Selected. 

"The Question." 
Were the whole world good as you — not an atom better — 
Were It just as pure and true. 
Just as pure and true as you; 
Just as strong in faith and works; 
Just as free from crafty quirks; 
All extortion, all deceit; 
Schemes its neighbor to defeat; 
Schemes its neighbors to defraud; 
Schemes some culprit to applaud— 
Would this world be better? 

If the whole world followed you — followed to the letter — 
Would it be a nobler world, 
All deceit and falsehood hurled 
From it altogether; 
Malice, selfishness, and lust 

Banished from beneath the crust 
Covering human hearts from view — 
Tell me, if it followed you, 
Would the world be better? 

—The British Weekly. 



XL. SHINING LIVES. 



"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, 
and glorify your Father which is in heaven." — Matthew 5:16. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

On this subject of "The Christian A Light," Rev. Dr. Burdett Hart 
said: We do not need to adopt any philosophical theory of light to 
perceive the beauty and pertinence of the figure by which our Lord rep- 
resents his friends as the light of the world. 1. The world is dark because 
sin dominates it. Sin darkens the mind so that God, truth, duty, the 
way of salvation by Christ, are obscured. 2. Therefore it needs light, 
penetrating, revealing, awakening. Watch the earth when the light of 
morning breaks over it! So the moral world needs the spiritual light — ■ 
the light of Christian example, instruction, influence. 3. This light is not 
our light. It is given from above. Christ is the light of the world, and 
the light that is in us is from him, as the reflected light of the moon 
is from the sun. It is not given to be hidden, but to shine forth. The 
old Roman law maintained the right of citizens to unobstructed light. 
Light is for the world. If we have it we must let it shine. The light 
of the individual Christian should make an illuminated home. The light 
of the united Church should be like a lighted city at night, standing on 
a hill. 

* * * 

An unidentified preacher unfolded this truth along the following sug- 
gestive lines: The Church here is called the light of the world, and 
we may think of it in three aspects: 1. An Unconscious Influence. The 
influence of light is exercised without demonstration, yet in the most 
effective and searching way. So this influence of the Church is often so 
gentle, so steady, so regular, as to be unconscious both to the Christian 
and the Church on the one hand, and the person affected on the other. 
2. The Power. Light illumines, dispels the darkness. It reveals reality. 
Light beautifies, it touches the earth with varied colors, it gives lights 
and shades, it gives form and figure. Light purifies; it can penetrate 
Into the foul pool and convert that which is corrupt into that which is 
clean. Light has the power to photograph. It can impress upon the 
sensitive plate the image which reflects It. So, too, the Church and the 
Christian, as the light shining in the darkness, dispel that darkness and 
reveal God to man, and man to himself. 3. Reflection. The original light 
in this world is the sun, which sheds Its light upon the objectB of earth. 
In turn these objects reflect that light upon other objects, and thus It 1b 
distributed and multiplied, and Its effects increased. Jesus Christ Is the 
light of the world. The light of the Christian is a reflected one. Jesus 
shines Into us, and we reflect his light out to the world. But reflected 
light carries with it the coloring of the object from which it is reflected. 
One object reflects red, another blue, another green, each according to 
its own particular nature. So, when the liRht of Christ fallH upon us. 
It is the pure white light that comes out of his own holy character, but 



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when we reflect the light, it is always colored with our own individual 
character, with its defects and Imperfections. 

* * * 

Preaching on "The Kind of Christianity the World Needs," Rev. 
David J. Wylie, D.D., LL.D., used the following treatment: 

I. A Christianity not afraid of the facts. The first fact is that the 
human heart is sinful and that the world needs a Saviour. If anyone 
Is disposed to doubt this proposition, let him look into his own heart or 
into the police records of our great cities. The sinfulness of mankind 
is fact number one. 

We must also face the fact of partial failure on the part of the 
church to give Christianity to the world. The reason why there has been 
failure is because Christians have not always been Christian, have lacked 
enthusiasm and consecration. Christians have too often been guilty of 
indifference, extravagance, luxury and worldliness, and nothing paralyzes 
the efforts of the church so quickly as these sins. We cannot win the 
world to Christ unless we are dead in earnest. 

II. The world needs a Christianity as broad as its sympathies. In 
the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ laid down the fundamental prin- 
ciples of his kingdom. This sermon contains all the theology that any- 
one needs to know, and every Christian should accept as his creed and 
believe intensely the doctrines of Christ. Jesus Christ was not indiffer- 
ent to human wants. He did not teach men simply their duties to God, 
but to each other. He went about doing good and we should walk in 
his footsteps. 

Christians are not properly sympathetic so long as they permit 
women and girls to work for long hours in unhealthy factories, boys and 
men to wear out their lives in the dark and damp recesses of the earth, 
or when the greed for wealth crowds thousands into unsanitary houses. 
This is a humanitarian age, and we should rejoice that the principles of 
Jesus Christ are being incorporated more and more into our laws. We 
should all be anxious that the average man has a better chance. 

III. The world needs a Christianity that produces character. What 
is character? The stamp of God, put upon our souls by education, habit 
and religion. What God knows us to be. The greatest victory a man 
ever gains is a victory over himself. Character differs widely from 
reputation. Reputation is what people think we are; character is what 
we really are. Both are valuable possessions, and a man should fight 
for his good name as fiercely as a lioness for her whelps or a king for 
his throne. We should guard our reputations as the angels guarded 
the entrance to Eden with flaming swords. 

Character shows itself in speech, song, conversation and conduct, in 
the books we read, the pleasures we enjoy, and in our dealings with our 
fellow men. True Christianity makes men upright, trustworthy, honest, 
pure-minded. We should see to it that we are about what our fellow 
men think us to be, that we have sterling character; for otherwise we 
shall be guilty of insincerity and hypocrisy, and God hates a hypocrite. 

IV. The world needs a Christianity that is filled with the missionary 
spirit. From the beginning Christianity was missionary in its spirit, 
and if it ever loses this spirit, it will be disloyal to Christ. 



SHINING LIVES 



207 



ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Letting the Light Shine (308). 

A first order light in a great lighthouse is a very complicated thing. 
Five huge circular wicks, one within the other, give a light so white, hot 
and dazzling, that the eye can not look upon it. The oil must feed Just 
so fast and the wicks be just so high, the draft be regulated to that nicety 
a good light demands. The heavy glass chimneys must be watched care- 
fully, for if one melts or bends, the light may 'go back,' and this is con- 
sidered a calamity, if for a few seconds; a crime, if for a few minutes. 
Sometimes during a heavy storm when the draft can not be regulated 
Just right, chimney after chimney will glow red, and bend and must be 
removed and a new one put on, and the mariner who may be watching 
the light will see it wink. 

God says, "I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou 
shouldst be for salvation unto the ends of the earth" — Acts 13:47. Are 
you reading God's word daily, that the oil of grace may be applied to the 
light within you, that it may have life? — McAlister. 

Illuminated Christians (309). 

If every Christian of us were illuminated by the Spirit of God, how 
we could light up the churches! But to have a lantern without any light, 
that would be a nuisance. Many Christians carry along lanterns and 
say: "I wouldn't give up my religion for yours." They talk about re- 
ligion. The religion that has no fire is like painted fire. They are arti- 
ficial Christians. Do you belong to that class? You can tell. If you 
cannot, your friends can. 

There 1b a fable of an old lantern in a shed, which began to boast 
because it had heard its master say that he didn't know what he would 
ever do without it. But the little candle within spoke up and said: 
"Yes, you'd be a great comfort if it wasn't for me! You are nothing; 
I'm the one that gives the light." We want to keep in communion with 
Christ and let him dwell in us richly and shine forth through us. — D. L. 
Moody. 

A Noble Life (311). 
At the death of a Christian girl a friend said: "Everywhere she 
went flowers bloomed in her path, and the air was sweeter when she 
passed through the room." What a record to leave of life! The aroma 
of such a character Is Incense In heaven. There can be no death to one 
who 1b In such touch with God. 

How to Shine (312). 
A gentleman brought back from Germany a little phosphorescent 
match-safe, and one evening took It out to show to some friends. He 
turned out all the gas-jets, but the obstinate little match-safe would not 
shine, and the man concluded he had been swindled. The next day. while 
examining his purchase more closely, he read on one side, "If you wish 
me to shine, keep me in the sunlight" He followed the directions, put 
It out where the sun's rays could be absorbed, and then In a dark room 
found It had a brilliant glow. Does any one know a better remedy for 
the Christian whose light has gone out than that which Jude Buggests — 
"Keep yourselves in the love of God?" — S. S. Chronicle. 



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Unconscious Influence (313). 

At Northfield one summer, in a college delegation, there was a young 
girl whose gay spirits, strong common sense and wise counsel set her 
always in front of her companions. She never dreamed that in the group 
prayer meetings her voice had a thrill and her handclasp a meaning that 
lifted the little meeting near to heaven. She never knew in latter years 
how much she did by simply being herself in the elevation and broaden- 
ing of a throng of girls who had not possessed her advantages. Her per- 
sonality was in itself exquisite, and the altar of consecration to the 
Master had lifted it to the highest plane of service. 

A great sorrow came suddenly to people who were sojourners in a 
far country. A cablegram from across the sea was brought to them in 
their inn, and its brief message smote their hearts to breaking. There 
was in the inn a maid whose office was humble, but who knew what to 
do because she was Christ's friend. She went to the telephone, spoke 
to a minister whom she knew, and in a little while knocked at the door 
of the room where the sorrow had eclipsed the joy, saying, "Dr. Blank 
is here." The minister brought them comfort, the comfort of Christ, 
and the young maidservant who called him had done Christ's work too. 
She had not thought of herself. You see what her personality made her 
do. — Selected. 

Lamps and Reflectors (314). 

Home comers by night to the port of Boston may discern the flashing 
of Minot's Ledge lighthouse while miles out at sea. The solemn wink- 
ing of that great eye sending out its 1-4-3 seems like a welcome to 
America. It is the sign that good Uncle Sam's latchstring is out and 
his light still in the window of home. 

I counted the flashes one night from the deck of a Cunarder, and 
long afterward on a summer morning climbed the tower to see the beacon 
itself. It proved to be no electric arc that had pierced the gloom for 15 
miles seaward, but only a good sized kerosene lamp. The apparatus did 
not look powerful enough to send out such powerful beams. 

One got the real secret of that brilliant flashing when he looked at 
the great burnished reflectors. They are polished like a mirror and no 
touch of visitor or attendant is allowed to cloud their gleaming surfaces. 
It wouldn't take such a stupendous light after all to shine brightly before 
a background like that. 

"Let your light shine," said the Master of life to us all. He assumes 
that our light will shine up to its capacity if we only give it a proper 
chance. We are not commanded to change the form or double the 
strength of the lamp. We are only to provide conditions so that its 
whole power may be available. 

None of us can change the candle power of the light he has to ex- 
hibit. Each one of the sons of men comes into the world with certain 
native powers not capable of change. 

But if the candle power of the light may not be enlarged, its actual 
efficiency may be immeasurably increased by proper attention to the re- 
flectors. When the burnished mirrors of industry and concentration and 
determination are put behind even a small lamp, it is simply amazing 
how the light is outrayed. — The Christian Intelligence. 



XLI. GOD OR GOLD. 



"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." — Matthew 6:24. 
ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

A discourse on this theme recently published used these lines of 
cleavage: 

What is the precise relation between a man's religion and his busi- 
ness? In what way, and to what extent, should his faith in God influ- 
ence his conduct in commerce? That would seem to be a simple question, 
easily answered by Christian people, and yet, practically, for the average 
man, it is a question beset with difficulty. 

Let me, then, indicate what seems to be the true and vital influence 
of religion on business life in three practical propositions. 

L Every business creates certain specific temptations of its own; 
it is the business of your religion to resist these temptations. 

II. Every business develops certain definite qualities, talents and 
capacities along its own special lines, and it is the business of your re- 
ligion to sanctify these talents and capacities. 

III. Every business opens up certain opportunities of helpfulness 
and service for God and man; and it is the business of your religion to 
teach you how to realize these things for the glory of God and the 
benefit of your fellow man. 

There is a worldly and there is a Christian way of acquiring wealth. 
What is the Christian way? 

First, the Christian must not seek to acquire property in such a 
spirit or In such a manner as to violate the law of love. 

Secondly, he must not sacrifice his own higher interests In order to 
acquire It 

The law of love requires that we shall abstain from everything that 
Is injurious to others, and do all we can that is beneficial. Thus It Is 
both negative and positive. — Waffle. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. Wilbur F. Crafts discussed this subject from the following 
angle: 

Many In seeking money as a good servant have really won a des- 
potic taskmaster. Instead of having money, money has them. Wealth 
has proved to them a man-stealor. It has kidnapped their manhood. 
There is no virtue in being a Lazarus. Poverty is not a passport to 
heaven, nor wealth the key to hell. Christ's parable means that It is 
better to be one of God's rich poor than one of the devil's poor rich. 
But It Is better still to be a good Dives, rich for both worlds, like Abraham 
and Job. But "riches without wisdom are food without salt!" The man 
who is so mismanaging his life that when he passes Into the other world, 
where all save "a handbreadth" of his existence is to be spent, he will 
leave all he has and enter there a bankrupt, with no treasure laid up fn 
heaven, is not a success, even thouRh ho may be a millionaire here. 

I make no crusade againBt wealth in itself. The lever that was to 
move the world wo find to be a lever of gold, and the place which Archl- 



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medes could not find is the Rock of Ages. We would not then, condemn 
wealth, but convert it to the truth. We would not destroy it, but employ 
it for humanity. Christ did not condemn those who sold oxen and sheep 
and doves because they were merchants, but because they made his 
Father's house "a house of merchandise" and "a den of thieves." Con- 
secrated talents of gold as well as of genius are blessed by the Saviour's 
words and win the applause of heaven's "well done." 

But the man who puts his trust in gold and deposits his heart in the 
bank, and thinks money means success, is like the starving traveler in 
the desert, who, seeing a bag in the distance, found in it, instead of 
food which he sought, nothing but gold, and flung it from him in disap- 
pointment, and died for want of something that could save his life. The 
soul will starve if gold alone administers to its needs. 

* * * 

This summary is taken from a homily published in the Northwestern 
Christian Advocate: 

When an eternal being is buried in temporal concerns, then the 
soul is smothered in sense and has become poor Indeed. Nothing is more 
pitiable than the spiritual penury of many a millionaire whose affluence 
is the envy of a foolish world. No one is more miserable than such a 
one when some accident of health or fortune drives him to draw upon 
his scanty inward resources for enjoyment. 

Most of us sooner or later must make our choice between transient 
and permanent good. Earth is a poor warehouse for the storage of treas- 
ure; it is infested with mold and decay. Jesus sadly suggests that we 
may have just the sort of good that we crave. He says of the rich, "Ye 
have your consolation now," and across the awful abysses of eternal 
destiny the pitying voice of doom speaks to Dives in torment, "Son, in 
thy lifetime thou hadst thy good things." He is rich beyond all eternal 
accident who can say, "God is the portion of my soul and mine inheri- 
tance." 

A rich man may so employ the unrighteous mammon that it shall be 
transfigured with spiritual meaning and become an everlasting invest- 
ment. Yet the Christian Church must never forget that the first beati- 
tude of the Blessed One was, "Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the king- 
dom of God." 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

The Grasping Spirit (315). 

The traveler in Italy sees the excavation still going on at Pompeii, 
by which the scoria? of ancient Vesuvian eruption are being carefully 
removed from the buried city. It is never known at what stroke the 
pick or shovel will uncover some relic of great interest and priceless 
worth. Report was made recently that workmen who were digging for 
a foundation of a new building outside the area of the buried city found 
the body of a woman which had been petrified. Both hands were full of 
jewels. Evidently the woman fled from the eruption of the fateful moun- 
tain and was caught and buried in the downpour of hot ashes. The 
jewels are excellently preserved, having been protected from the lava 
by the body. They consist of bracelets, necklaces, rings, amulets studded 



GOD OR GOLD 



211 



with gems, and a pair of earrings, which are probably unique. They may 
be the most valuable specimens of ancient jewelry ever discovered. 
Each earring contains twenty-one perfect pearls set in gold in imitation 
of a bunch of grapes. What a tragedy is revealed in that petrified corpse 
still grasping those jewels in its hand! The oncoming rush of darkness 
and ashes, the probable delay to secure the jewels, the attempted escape 
with the precious treasure closely gripped in the hand, the deluge of 
burning scoriae that finally overwhelmed the unhappy woman — all is laid 
bare by the spade as though it happened but yesterday. And Is not the 
same fate overtaking many in this day? How many are searching for 
and grasping after jewels and gold, wealth and fashion and pleasure, 
while careleBS of their souls and the oncoming judgment? — Presbyterian 
Banner. 

Greed (316). 

Captain Scott, in "The Voyage of the Discovery," tells of the immense 
care that was taken by the magnetic experts on board to banish all 
iron and steel from the vicinity of the magnetic observatory. Every- 
thing within thirty feet of the observatory had to be made of brass, lead, 
hemp, or some other non-magnetic material. These regulations secured 
the accuracy of the magnetic observation. 

But the motions of the heart are disturbed by a bit of gold anywhere 
In Its neighborhood. The thought of gain seems to mar and deflect the 
whole delicate machinery of the moral sense. Let a single yellow par- 
ticle Insinuate Itself too near the sacred circle of the conscience, and the 
judgment is no longer true to the eternal verities. We must watch here 
lest greed should cause us to forget honesty, fairness, brotherllness. — 
Watklnson. 

Success or Failure? (317). 

Worldly men are only satisfied with a little more than they have. 
"He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver." Columbus and 
his followers, when they had landed on this continent, at once asked 
the Indians for the land of gold, of which they long had dreamed. They 
were pointed over the mountains, and when they had crossed them they 
were pointed beyond yet other mountains, and so day after day they 
climbed the hills in vain. "So," sayB Irving, "the land of gold is ever 
beyond the mountains." 

Young men are apt to think that the catalogue of happiness and 
success Is all written on the back of bank bills, and some are willing to 
coin their hearts to Increase their wealth. You look upon the rich man 
as the Incarnation of satisfaction, the embodiment of success, but happl- 
nesB is the gift of God and cannot be purchased with money. The man 
who dies In the midst of bank books, unless hlB treasure and his heart 
are In heaven, really dies poor, for he goes to- the other world bankrupt, 
taking nothing with him, not even a hope. Men whisper, "How much 
did he leave?" One answers, "A million." Another says, "lie left two 
millions." But God and angels answer more truly, "He left all he had." 

Wealth consecrated to the service of God and man Ib twice blessed; 
the poor rise up to call It blessed, and it has the blesBlng of »he Lord, 
which maketh rich and addeth no sorrow with it; but gold without God, 
and banknotes which have not beneath their rustle the throbbing of a 



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Christian heart, are like a millstone hanged about the soul to sink it in 
the depths of despair. — Crafts. 

Gold Won; God Lost (318). 

In North Africa, in a nook sheltered under the mountains and sur- 
rounded by rich groves of orange and palms, is a large hotel; all its in- 
mates are exiles from home and native land. Because the little town 
exempts them from arrest, these guests have found therein a place of 
refuge. Who are these American exiles? They are bookkeepers, cash- 
iers, confidential clerks, directors, who have been guilty of dishonesty 
and with their booty have fled from justice. Sitting in the garden or 
lingering beneath the fountains, they are seeking to forget the past; but 
lo! there are no waters of Lethe in Africa. In Mexico also there is one 
street given up to these exiles from home, and in a Canadian city there 
is another colony of restless and heart broken fugitives. The path upon 
which they entered seemed to be paved with gold, but the end of that 
path was fiiery ashes. 

Weighted Souls (319). 

When Garrick showed Dr. Johnson his fine house, gardens, statues, 
pictures, etc., at Hampton Court, what ideas did they awaken in the 
mind of that great man? Instead of a flattering compliment which was 
expected — "Ah, David, David," said the Doctor, "these are the things 
which often make a deathbed terrible!" They do that when they are 
acquired dishonestly or at the expense of a man's higher nature. 

Expensive Wealth (320). 
One man asked another: "How is your old classmate, F., doing?" 
"Not very well, I am sorry to say." 

"Why, I thought I heard he was at about the top of the profession." 
"So he is." 

"And growing rich fast." 

"Yes, that is true." 

"Well, what do you mean then?" 

"I mean that he is running down hill every day — is almost at the 
bottom; and the prospect is darker the longer he lives. He seemed to 
be a noble fellow in college, with something of almost Christian prin- 
ciple in him. But he has sagged away into a mean ambition, grown 
harder and colder with every year, is getting more tightly hide-bound 
in his selfishness, and, for aught I see, is already virtually a lost man." 

"This is a new way you have of looking at men like him." 

"Perhaps so; but possibly we may find, by and by, that other eyes 
up yonder see him in about the same light." 

When a man fills his pocket to the neglect of his mind and soul, 
his wealth becomes the silver bridle of an ass. 

That rich man is a failure who is "living the life of the flesh, whether 
in low, sensual gratification, or that which is refined, aesthetic, and self- 
ish."— Selected. 



XLIL THE LOYAL AVOWAL. 



"Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess 
also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall 
deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which 
is in heaven." — Matthew 10:32, 33. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

A noted preacher in commenting on the cowardice which holds men 
back from confession of Christ, says: 
"Of what are they ashamed?" 

L Are they ashamed of his mysterious nature? Not the least mys- 
terious part of it was its duality. But if the Scriptures be accepted as 
true, we can not evade the conclusion that he was both God and man, 
And, considering his singular mission to earth, is it not to be expected 
that he would be unique, and stand upon a higher plane than those whom 
he came to save? If he were a mere man, would it not he a heavier tax 
on faith to believe that he is a Saviour, than to accept the teaching that, 
in order to qualify him for his work, Deity and humanity were united 
in him, that thus man may be brought back to God? 

II. Are they ashamed of his death? That he died on the cross is 
a historical fact. That he died, not as an evil doer but as an innocent 
being, is equally well established. He died a martyr to a worthy cause, 
Indeed. But more, he died to bear the sin and shame of those whom he 
would save. He was man's substitute. Is that any reason for being 
ashamed of him? Does not the principle of suffering and sacrifice for 
the life and well-being of others run through all human experience? We 
know it in every other instance. The mother gives her life for the child; 
the life-saver plunges into the deep to rescue the drowning man; the 
fireman leaps into danger to carry out those imperiled by the flames; 
the Holdier gives his life for his country. And when, as a result of such 
heroic act, one bears the scars, he points to them with pride. When he 
becomes disabled he is pensioned. Why not glory in the cross of Christ, 
the symbol of his sacrifice and love? 

HI. Are they ashamed of his teachings? Never man spake as this 
man. Words of matchless wisdom, of Incomparable love, of sweetest 
sympathy, fairness to people in every position of life! His words have 
been the seed thoughts from which have been evolved the highest phil- 
osophy, the purest morality, the best legislation and the holiest religion. 
His Sermon on the Mount stands without an equal in the loftiness of its 
conception. Its practical adaptation to the needs of men, and in simplic- 
ity of expression. As a teacher ho Is without a peer. He has proved 
himself to be anointed of God, a prophet of keener insight and higher 
authority than any before or since. Is there reason to bo ashamed of 
his teachings? 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. W. H. dough says: What Is It to bo ashamed? 

L Shame is a moral emotion. It is the reaction of a moral passion 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



against what is conceived to be a wrong. The confusion of a little child 
when caught in some petty theft, the flush on the young man's brow 
when some base charge is laid against him, the blanched cheek of a 
man when some fear of disgrace shakes his heart, are signals of this 
inward emotion. The strong moral anger of a brave spirit at any wanton 
ill-doing, and the pathetic sadness of a loving heart at another's fall, 
are nobler instances of the office of shame. When Jonathan rose from 
his father's table in anger at the wrong done to David, when Elisha 
looked on the brazen face of guilty Gehazi, when Jesus looked round 
about him with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, 
this moral emotion of shame was in flood within. Shame is a flame 
kindled by the conscience, and it shines out in the blush on the cheek, 
and breaks forth in the brave word on the tongue. 

II. But this moral emotion of shame may be perverted. A man 
may be ashamed of what is innocent, what is pure, what is holy. The 
man who hangs his head for honest poverty, who conceals hiB humble 
birth and lineage, who is pricked in his heart at his father's toil-worn 
hands, or his mother's simple speech, who is mortified by the homeliness 
of his narrow way of life, has vulgarized and degraded the emotion of 
shame. 

* * * 

At the close of a prayer meeting among sailors, a young seaman, 
who had only a few nights before been converted, came up to the leader 
and laying a blank card before him, requested him to write a few words 
upon it, because, as he said: "You will do it more plainly than I can." 
"What must I write?" said my friend. "Write these words, sir: 'I love 
Jesus — do you?'" After he had written them, my friend said: "Now 
you must tell me what you are going to do with the card." He replied: 
"I am going to sea tomorrow, and I am afraid if I do not take a stand 
at once I may begin to be ashamed of my religion, and let myself be 
laughed out of it altogether. Now as soon as I go on board, I shall walk 
straight to my bunk and nail up this card upon it, that every one may 
know that I am a Christian, and may give up all hope of making me 
either ashamed or afraid of adhering to the Lord." 

The young sailor was right. A bold front is often more than half 
the battle, and many a general has saved himself from being attacked 
by making what is called a "show of force." So let it be with you in 
the carrying out of your religious convictions. Meet your assailants, 
not with retaliation, but with calm fortitude. — Selected. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
The Young Convert (321). 
A young convert got up in one of our meetings and tried to preach; 
he could not preach very well either, but he did the best he could — but 
some one stood up and said, "Young man, you cannot preach; you ought 
to be ashamed of yourself." Said the young man, "So I am, but I am 
not ashamed of my Lord." That is right. Do not be ashamed of Christ 
— of him who bought us with his own blood. 

The Inevitable Christ (322). 
The story has come down from the early centuries that when the 



THE LOYAL AVOWAL 



215 



storm of persecution broke over the Christian Church in Rome, the little 
company of the believers besought Peter to seek refuge in flight. His 
sense, both of loyalty and of honor, rose up to protest. But his friends 
pleaded that while their deaths would be only the loss of a few sheep 
of the fold, his would be the loss of the shepherd. He set out by night 
along the Appian way. But as he traveled a vision flashed upon him 
of a figure clothed in white and a face crowned with thorns. "Quo 
vadis, domine?" "Whither goest thou, Lord?" Peter cried to Christ, 
"To Rome, to be crucified instead of thee." 

"Into the night the vision ebbed like breath, 
And Peter turned and ru3hed on Rome and death." 
That is a parable of the inevitable Christ. Whether we seek him or 
seek him not, whether we are in the way of our duty or out of it, the 
viBion of Christ shall meet us face to face. — Rev. W. M. Clow. 

Christ Attracts the Best (323). 

It would be a real difficulty in the way of accepting Christianity, 
says Dr. Gwatkin, if it did not attract the best men of every time. But 
it does! It had a Paul and an Origen and an Athanasius and an Augus- 
tine in the early days; it has had a Newton and a Kepler and a Faraday 
and a Kelvin In these days of ours. The mightiest minds find in Christ 
their Master. And at the head of the procession of the gifted and the 
learned who own Christ as Lord is this great teacher of Israel who 
came to JeBus by night. 

Our Lord satisfies the highest as well as the humblest. We are sun- 
dered from one another by great chasms of difference. We are rich 
and poor; we are gifted and commonplace; we are learned and ignorant. 
But, whatever our condition, Christ is our sufficiency. He meets every 
need. He satisfies every want. He answers every aspiration. He stoops 
to the lowest He is mightier than the mightiest. If only we come to 
him, as Nicodemus came to him, we shall be constrained exultingly to 
say — 

"Thou, O Christ, art all I want, 
Mora than all in Thee I find." 

— Rev. J. D. Jones. 

Real Confession (324). 
It is easy to hang on our walls great master words of Christ, 
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." But to make all 
that is done under the shadow of that text pure, is the test of our 
loyalty to Christ. It 1b easy to take an Interest in Christ's kingdom, and 
to be conspicuous In its service, but to go down to our daily business 
and to hear Christ's word "Follow Me" clearly above the babble of its 
Bounds, and to obey, is the mark of our loyalty. It Is easy to kneel In 
prayer, and to commit oneself to God's keeping, but to go forth to our 
pleasures and to hear Christ saying, "Lovest thou Me more than these?" 
and to make answer meet, Is to confess Christ. A merchant was called 
upon by another who asked him to Join In a new venture. The Induce- 
ments were most alluring. The basiB of the proposal was financially 
sound. The profits were large and secure. The conduct of Ub affairs 
would not be a heavy addition to his labor. Tho speaker was persuasive 



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and urgent. The merchant had almost yielded to the request to share 
in the enterprise. But its dividends were to be wrung out of a traffic 
which imperiled, and often degraded, the natives of the West Coast of 
Africa. There came to the tempted man an inward vision — do you 
know it? — of a face smitten with sorrow. He heard an inward voice — 
have you heard it? — "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul?" He bowed down to the sovereignty 
of Christ's words. He stood up with a clear and simply spoken word, 
No! He was not ashamed of Christ, and Christ shall not be ashamed of 
him. — Selected. 

The Manly Thing to Do (325). 

Being a Christian is synonymous with being manly. Jesus was the 
ideal man. He above all others was candid, brave and true. He Wiis 
incapable of anything cowardly or underhanded. His unshrinking cour- 
age thrilled and lifted the men who knew him. To be a Christian is to 
go to school to him; the mind which was in him is also to be in us. If 
through fear or shame we creep and sneak through life, not daring to 
proclaim our thoughts, our own heart condemns us and tells us that 
we are unworthy of being numbered among the disciples of One who was 
always outspoken and magnificently frank. — Charles E. Jefferson, D.D. 

Stand Up and be Counted (326). 

The Governor of a great state found himself rather unexpectedly, 
one day, in the midst of a Sabbath School convention. As soon as it 
was known that he was in the house there was a desire to have him 
address the meeting, and he was called upon. But he felt himself utterly 
unprepared; he had no speech ready, and he simply responded: "Friends, 
I really have nothing to say, but I am heartily in sympathy with your 
work, and I can at least stand up and be counted." Standing up to be 
counted does not require any great genius or brilliancy, but there are 
many times when it does really require courage — a courage in which 
many gifted ones may be found sadly lacking. To be numbered, and 
have it know that we are always ready to be numbered among those 
who stand for whatever is pure and right, and against whatever is evil, 
however strongly it may be intrenched, is in itself no mean position. 



XLIII. SOUL REST. 



"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you 
rest."— Matthew 11:28. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. J. D. Jones, in developing the thought of this text, said: 

That is the decisive test of a religion that claims to be universal, 
and that professes to meet the needs of a world — what message has it 
for the "weary?" For the "weary," after all, form the majority of man- 
kind, and a religion that cannot minister to them cannot pretend to be 
a religion for the world. For by the "weary"' I do not mean the physical- 
ly tired and worn. The "weary" are the people who are weary in soul. 
And these are the "weary" I am thinking of — the people who have lost 
heart; the people who feel life's load too heavy for them; the people 
whose spirits are wounded and crushed by sorrow. And the "weary" 
in this sense — the people who are worn and burdened by sorrow, by temp- 
tation, by sin, by fear — are everywhere. I venture to say again, they 
constitute the majority of mankind. At one time or another we all find 
ourselves enrolled in their ranks. And the real test of a religion, of its 
value and worth, is this: Can it do anything for the weary? Can it 
minister to the diseased mind? Can it bind up the broken in heart? 

Pleasure speaks to the vigorous and strong; not to the weary. 

Business speaks only to the strong. 

Life in general speaks to the healthy and youthful. 

But it is the glory of our Christian faith that it can minister to the 
"weary," that it can succor with words the tired and the broken, that it 
can breathe new hope Into the bankrupt and the despairing. 

Dr. Matheson, in his book on the Portrait of Christ, puts it this 
way: "Christianity," he says, "is a regressive religion. It goes back 
to gather up the lost things — the things which have fallen by the way 
and been left behind. It is the glory of Jesus that he goes back to 
the forest of humanity to seek the children that have lost their way. 
All the rest are pressing forward. Brahmin, Buddhist, Parsee, Greek, 
Roman — all their messages are for the strong. Jesus alone has a mes- 
sage for the weak." That is it exactly. Other religions preach the 
rather heartless doctrine of the "survival of the fittest." Jesus preached 
"the survival of the unfit." He knew how to succor with words him 
that was weary. 

He Is still master of that gracious secret. And that Is what makes 
him a Saviour for the world. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Rest for the Sin-Weary (327). 
I was preaching In a city In England, some time ago, and the next 
night I received a letter asking for prayer and telling a story of sorrow 
and tears, with no name attached. On the next Sunday a man came 
to the church and I talked with him In private. He said, "I am the writer 
of that letter; I am the father of nlno children, all of whom aro living. 



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My wife is very delicate. I have held a position of trust for thirty 
years and am looked upon as a respectable citizen. I am a fraud." He 
then told me that twenty-five years before he was a gambler and stole 
$500 'rom his employer and so "cooked" the books that the theft was 
never known. He had never been able to get $500 to repay it, but had 
never gambled again, and continued: "You don't know the hell I have 
been carrying about ever since. Three times I have presented myself 
to a church for membership, for I wanted to be a good man, but when 
I got to the church I dared not enter. It seemed as if that $500 stood 
up and said, 'You daren't enter.' In your sermon you told me to slay 
utterly. That means confession." "It does." "That may mean exposure?" 
"Yes." "It may mean prison?" "Yes, it may." He then spoke of his wife 
and children, and I said: "Don't you see, you don't sin alone. It is 
not what you do for yourself only, it is what you are doing for other 
people, too." He said: "See what it means for my wife and children? 
Oh, have pity!" I said: "Stop a minute. The sin was not against your 
wife. First of all, it was against God, and you have to put God in his 
right place. You have to set everybody else aside and begin with 
God, prison or no prison, exposure or no exposure, disgrace or no dis- 
grace, God, God first." 

That poor fellow trembled like a leaf, and then with the tears stream- 
ing down his face he cried, "Thou God of my mother, have mercy on 
me!" And I dropped to my knees beside him and put my arms around 
him and tried to help him to pray. At last he said: "Prison or no 
prison, Christ for me!" Presently he got up from his knees and I said, 
"Have you the same employer you had thirty years ago?" "Yes," he 
said. "Does he still go to business?" "Yes, every morning." "Then," 
said I, "ask for an interview and I will pray for you. He has kept you 
for thirty years and you have been a valuable servant. Tell him all your 
story. How you gambled, how you got into that tight fix, tell him every- 
thing, and then say, 'Sir, if you can have pity on my wife and children, 
take so much off my salary each week; but if you cannot then send me 
to jail.' God stands for the man who stands for the right." And if ever 
I prayed in my life I prayed that morning, from 9 to 11. At 5 o'clock 
I saw him coming up the street. He stumbled up the steps and threw 
his arms around my neck and when he got inside he said, "God is good. 
I told my story. My employer listened and when I had told him all 
he said, 'Herbert, from today you are my friend. I will not only forgive 
you but from this hour I will raise your salary.' " 

Every time I go to that city that man meets me. He is now a local 
preacher. He came out right because he was prepared to do right be- 
fore God. The man who will do that will come out right, if not here, 
he will come out right yonder, up there. — Gypsy Smith. 

With Heart Attuned (328). 
Nothing could induce Ole Bull to play in public until his violin was 
in perfect tune. It did not make any difference how long it took him 
or how uneasy his audience became, if a string stretched the least bit 
during a performance, even if the discord was not noticed by any one 
but himself, the instrument had to be put into harmony before he went 
on. A poorer musician would not be so particular. He would say to 



SOUL REST 



219 



himself: "I will run through this piece, no matter if one string is 
down a bit. No one may detect it but myself." 

It does not matter what particular instrument you may be using in 
the great life orchestra, whether it be the violin, the piano, the voice, 
or your mind expressing itself in literature, law, medicine, or any other 
vocation, you can not afford to start your concert until you are in tune 
with the Infinite. This means soul-rest. — Selected. 

A Soul at Rest (329). 
Some years ago a rescuing party after a long struggle reached the 
gallery in the mine where some English miners had been imprisoned 
for days. They were found all dead. By their side were written their 
last messages to the loved ones whom they were not to see again. They 
were messages full of love, and of joy in their faith in Jesus Christ. 
Both expressions were equally real, their love of their friends and their 
love of their Lord. This joy and peace, this strength in the presence of 
death itself, is what he came to bring; what he has brought to un- 
numbered souls and what he is bringing today and is able to bring to 
whoever will receive him. — Stimson. 

The Burden Bearer (330). 
In the summer of 1878 I descended the Rigi with one of the most 
faithful of the old Swiss guides, who gave me unconsciously a lesson for 
life. His first care was to put my wraps and other burdens upon his 
shoulders. He asked for all; but I chose to keep back a few for special 
care. I soon found them no little hindrance to the freedom of my move- 
ments, but still I would not give them up until my guide, returning to 
me where I sat resting a moment, kindly but firmly demanded that I 
should give him everything but my alpenstock. Putting them with the 
utmost care upon his shoulders, he again led the way. And now I found 
I could make a double speed with double safety. Then a voice spoke 
Inwardly: "Oh, foolish, willful heart, hast thou indeed given up thy 
last burden? Thou hast no need to carry them, nor even the right." 
Then, as I leaped lightly from rock to rock down the steep mountain- 
side, I Bald within myself: "And even thus will I follow Jesus, my 
Guide, my Burden-bearer. I will cast all my care upon him, for he 
careth for me." — A Dally Thought. 

Finding All In Christ (331). 
On the outside page of a paper was a cartoon. In the foreground of 
the picture were heavy, bluck, thunderous-looking clouds. Through them 
was a Jagged mountain peak. On a shelf of the rock above the clouds 
stood the figure of a man, evidently a miner. On him were the marks 
of toll, hardships, care, disappointment, weariness. His head was bare; 
bis hair long, hanging about his shoulders, matted, tangled, making him 
look almost wild. His face was dark, lined, but triumphant. His arms 
were bare almost to the shoulders. His shirt was open at the breast. 
His trousers were gone from the knees down and hung In rags about 
him. His feet were bare. In his right hand was a pickax. His left 
hand was held high aloft, and In It he grasped a gleaming stone. On 
that his eyes were fixed. That was that for which, through weary 



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months — perhaps years — he had toiled. 

The look upon his face was one of exultation. He had triumphed 
at last. He had toiled and struggled to find the one thing on which his 
heart was set. Hitherto only disappointment had met his effort, but 
today he had won. There in his hand was the gleaming diamond. He 
had achieved! In that stone were home, wife, children, comfort, wealth, 
rest, peace, for all his after years. He knew it, and the thoughts of 
what that meant to him made his whole being overflow with joy. 

The artist had not left his picture without its symbolic interpreta- 
tion. Across the heavy black clouds were written these significant 
words: "Sin and temptation." They were the clouds which had beset 
him and through which he had come. He was above them now, free 
from them forever. On the handle of hi3 pick was written, "Faith," on 
the blade, "Works." They had been the implements of his toil — faith 
and works — and by faith through his works he had for long been sus- 
tained. Across the gleaming stone was written that great word "Salva- 
tion." God had rewarded his toil at last. Nothing could ever take that 
from him. There was forgiveness there. There was hope of glory 
there. There was assurance of heavenly rest there. It was his, and no 
hand but the hand that gave it could ever take it away. As we looked 
and comprehended, the Italian's song swelled up out of our hearts and 
once more we began to sing, 

"Jesus, I come to thee; I am seeking salvation." 

This is the story of the song and the'picture. — R. S. Holmes, D.D. 

Deliverance (332). 

Henry Clay, at one time of his life, was burdened with a debt of 
?10,000, due to a bank in Kentucky. Certain political friends of Mr. 
Clay raised a sufficient sum of money, and quietly paid off the debt. 

In ignorance of the fact, Mr. Clay went to the bank, and said to 
the cashier, "I have called to see you in reference to that debt of mine 
to the bank." "You don't owe us anything," replied the cashier. "Why! 
How am I to understand you?" "Well, a number of your friends have 
contributed, and paid off that debt — you do not owe this bank one dol- 
lar." Tears rushed into Mr. Clay's eyes, and being unable to speak, he 
walked away. 

Mr. Clay felt the joy of a great deliverance — a deliverance from a 
galling debt. And deliverance is the key-note in the "new song" of all 
the blood-bought millions on earth and in heaven. 

All Fullness Dwells in Him (333). 

When Dr. Martineau was resigning his pastorate in Liverpool, this 
was his farewell utterance: "The one deep faith which has determined 
my whole word and work among you is in the living union of God with 
our humanity. We pine as prisoners until we burst into the air of that 
supernatural life which he lives eternally; we are parched with a holy 
thirst till we find contact with the running waters of his quick affection. 
Him immediately, him in person; him for a refuge in temptation; him 
ready with his breathings of hope for the sorrowing; him always and 
everywhere living for our holy trust, do we absolutely need for our re- 
pose, and wildly wander till we find. In Christ alone is the reconcilia- 
tion perfect between the human and the divine." 



XLIV. DYNAMIC FAITH. 



"O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt." — Mat- 
thew 15:28. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. Laidlaw, the noted exegete, said on this text: 
This faith was great — 1. In overcoming obstacles. Its greatness was 
of the same order as that of the paralytic let through the roof, and of 
blind Bartimeus. These were three mighties. The first overcame phys- 
ical hindrances; the second, hindrances opposed by his fellow-men; 
this woman, more heroically than all, those presented by Christ himself 
— silence, exclusion, and apparent reproach. 2. It was implicit trust in 
Christ's work for the instantaneous cure of her absent child. In this re- 
spect it was of the same order as that of the courtier at Cana and the 
centurion at Capernaum, only greater in degree than even the last. In 
these healings granted to believing prayer for another, faith shows pe- 
culiarly generous and noble. Jesus hails its appearance with a corre- 
sponding and surpassing generosity; at once avails himself of it, that it 
may conduct as with lightning flash the blessing to the absent sufferer, 
and assures the trustful suppliant that the cure is done. 3. It was great 
In spiritual tact. This is the characteristic excellence on which, doubt- 
less, the Lord's special encomium here rested. His action in the case 
was not feigned refusal, but a needful process by which alone at that 
point in his mission a soul outside of Israel could be led to Christ. The 
greatness of her faith lay in the quick-witted tact with which the woman 
perceived and accepted her relationship to the world's Redeemer. Just 
as good sense Is a right feeling for reality in the common world of our 
everyday life, faith is a right feeling for the spiritually and eternally 
real. It Is the trustful willingness to accept our due relation to our 
Saviour God. Taking at once the lowest room, her faith won the highest 
praise, and forestalled the day of a universal gospel. 

* * * 

Rev. Andrew C. Ellis, D.D., developed this text in this way: 
I. She was a woman of "grit." She had the capacity and the cour- 
age to do. George Matheson did not sit down in despair when stone 
blindness came upon him. Fanny Crosby is still singing in the dark- 
ness, and the story of Helen Keller is one of the most pathetic and in- 
spiring in any tongue. 

A little company of people on a railway train were taking the body 
of the old mother to a distant village for burial. On the way one of 
them pointed out a little farmhouse standing in a lonely place, and told 
how the mother had been left alone with seven little children, and how 
one dark night the train stopped Just opposite this little old house, and 
this mother got off with her bundleB, and they handed the children down 
to her one by one, seven of them, and she went down there and kept them 
together, until she saw them grow to strong manhood and womanhood, 
and three of them are ministers of the gospel today. That was grit, 
the courage and capacity to do and enduro and win the victory through 



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faith In God. It takes grit to fight the battle of life. It takes courage 
to be a faithful follower of the courageous Son of God. 

This woman showed her common sense in not being offended at ap- 
parent incivility. She did not argue when Jesus declared that he came 
to minister only to Jews; she only cried: "Lord, help me!" She smiled, 
and acknowledged her unworthiness, and made it a plea, and was trium* 
phant in her faith. The Lord Jesus could not get out of helping this 
woman, which was perhaps the very thing he came to do. 

II. And once more, and best of all, this woman exhibited grace in 
her conduct. Her suffering was vicarious. She was making the sorrow 
of another her own. Her request was unselfish; she came on behalf of 
another, her daughter; how could Christ possibly turn her away on such 
a plea! Sorrow makes the poorest lips eloquent; love breaks down 
every barrier that would oppose it. To come to Christ in behalf of some 
one else, and to feel that the crumbs from his table are better than the 
luxuries from all other tables; to show our grace in the humility of our 
coming, and with an unwavering heart press our way into his presence 
and make known to him our heart's desire — that is faith, and there is 
only one answer to such a plea. 

Someone has suggested the following homiletic analysis of this pas- 
sage: 

The Fourfold Victory of This Woman's Faith. 

1. Over her birth — a heathen. 

2. Over Christ's silence. 

3. Over pride — humiliation. 

4. Over the disciples' discouragement. 

Christ's Fourfold Reason for Delay. 

1. To emphasize the fact that he came to Israel. 

2. To strengthen her faith. 

3. To manifest it to those around. 

4. To cause her to appreciate his gift at its true worth. 

The Fourfold Encouragement Given Her. 

1. She was permitted to tell her story. 

2. She knew her case was given consideration. 

3. She obtained personal recognition. 

4. She received more than she asked for — cure and commendation. 

The Fourfold Proof of the Genuineness of Her Faith. 

1. Courageous public avowal of her faith in Christ. 

2. Intelligent presentation of her petitions. 

3. Importunity. 

4. She throve on opposition. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Falling Toward the Cross (334). 
Faith is "falling toward the cross." 

The great, blessed, central truth of the Gospel is that truth of the 
Cross. 

God laid our sins on Christ. Christ died for them on the Cross. 



DYNAMIC FAITH 



223 



Whenever, in penitence and trust, we fall toward that Cross, our whole 
life is thrown wide open for God's entrance, and he comes into it and 
begins his work of grace there, and we are saved, so that faith is the 
heart's vision of the cross. 

A Scotchwoman was once introduced as "Mrs. , a woman of 

great faith." "No," she said, "I am a woman of little faith, but with a 
great God." Faith looks at the cross and realizes that the great God 
there pledges his willingness and power to save. 

Seeing Christ's Face (335). 
Robert Louis Stevenson describes a ship caught in a storm off a 
rocky coast, threatening death to all on board. When terror among the 
people was at its worst, one man, more daring than the rest, making the 
perilous passage to the pilot house, saw the pilot lashed to his post, with 
his hands on the wheel, and turning the ship little by little into the 
open sea. When he beheld the ghastly white, terror-stricken face of the 
man, he smiled, and the man rushed to the deck below shouting: "I have 
seen the face of the pilot, and he smiled. All is well." A sight of that 
smiling face averted a panic, and converted despair into hope. So a sight 
of the face of Christ averts a panic in life, and fills the soul with peace 
and hope. Therefore, to see God's face in Christ is to be at peace. "As 
chaos became order and beauty under the wings of the Spirit of God, 
and as the troubled waves of Galilee sank into calm beneath the 
Saviour's feet," bo there can be no disquietude in his presence, beholding 
his face, sharing his favor. 

A Faith That Endured the Test (336). 

A young man was converted in a mission in Spokane. He became 
a preacher of righteousness, doing evangelistic work on La Grande Dis- 
trict, Oregon. In the town where a series of meetings was being con- 
ducted lived an intellectual woman of middle age who was a skeptic, as 
was her father. Her mother had been a Christian, but not so strong in 
mind and expression as the father; for that reason the daughter clung 
to him and to his belief. This woman attended some of the meetings 
and seemed interested. She was asked by the preacher if she did not 
wish to become a Christian. 

"No," said she, "I do not believe a word you are preaching; but I 
attend these sessions because I am interested in seeing what Ib done, 
and to hear what is said." 

"You say you do not believe," said the earnest man. "I do not care 
whether or not you believe in us or in the meetings. Do you not want 
to know for yourself whether these things are true?" 

"Why, yes, certainly," replied she; "it would satisfy my mind won- 
derfully." 

He told her to act as if God really were present, and able to under- 
stand her desire. So he encouraged her to pray; but Bhe got no lighter 
heart, but Instead a heavier one. She went home and had the usual 
experiences of a seeker - — unable to eat. Bleep, work, converse, or act 
otherwise than absent-mindedly aB to thlnKB of earth. The next after- 
noon she was standing looking out of the window when peace came. She 
told It at tho next night's meeting. 



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"Now," said she, "I'm going to tell my father. He lives in Northern 
Idaho, and I know there'll be something doing when he hears of this. 
He ever regarded me as too strong in mind to believe such 'folly.' I will 
tell him mother was right and he was wrong." 

"Is your mother living?" 

"No; mother has been dead many years." 

"How old is your father?" 

"Seventy-six; but I am going to write him at once." 

She did so. The letter was followed in thought till she knew he had 
had time to get it. Then she timed the reply, believing he would write 
immediately. So accurate was her guessing that she even met the stage 
on which the answer would reach her post office, and was there to receive 
it; but he did not write. She had no letter by that stage. But, when the 
passengers got off at the postoffice, there, to her astonishment, was the 
father, who had to go all the long way to see what silliness had per- 
suaded his intellectual daughter to believe in the story of Jesus Christ. 

When she saw him she said: "Papa, it's true. Mother was right 
and you were wrong. I know for myself that Jesus is alive, and he is 
able to hear and to answer prayer." 

The result was that two nights after that the old skeptic became 
soundly converted. His daily testimony is clear as that of the Apostle 
Paul — "I know." — Western Christian Advocate. 

Faith Means Confidence (337). 

Faith means confidence. We shall never win in this fight without 
that kind of faith. We must have confidence in God, a serene and unshak- 
able trust that infinite wisdom is planning, infinite power pushing for- 
ward, and infinite love inspiring, this great work of winning men to the 
true life, and thus saving the city. We say we believe that. But, oh, to 
believe it as Jesus did, not as an abstract proposition, but as a living, 
working reality; that "God is on the field" and that he will win; that 
there is something greater than this mighty city of ours, its gigantic 
buildings, its immense business interests, its masses of men; that our 
God is greater; that all this is child play to him; put such faith as that 
to work in the lives of Christian men and women, and a potent force 
would be set in action that would level the mountain of difficulty as 
surely and as swiftly as the power of the United States has cut through 
the Culebra range at Panama. 

Once when the cause of the Reformation looked hopeless, when few 
kept the faith, and foes were many and strong, Luther, talking with 
Melancthon, suddenly said, "Come, Philip, let us sing the forty-sixth 
Psalm, and, as they sang the strong words, 'A mighty fortress is our 
God,' " they felt a power with them greater than any force their enemies 
could put forth. God gives his church that sterling confidence in him that 
makes the heart brave and the arm strong to move mountains and achieve 
the impossible. This is God's work and he will do it; such is the faith 
that means victory. — William Pierson Merrill, D.D. 

Wesley's Faith (338). "My brother Charles, amid the difficulties of 
our early ministry, used to say, 'If the Lord would give me wings I would 
fly.' I used to answer, 'If the Lord bid me fly, I should trust him for the 
wings.' " — John Wesley. 



XLV. PRAYER'S SURE ANSWER. 



"If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall 
ask, it shall be done for them." — Matthew 18:19. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Ab a clear setting forth of the spirit of this text the following sum- 
mary by the Rev. Ira Barnett is a model: 

Martin Luther, the titanic man who, under God, "broke the spell of 
ages and laid nations subdued at the foot of the cross," was the man 
who said: "I have so much work to do today that I cannot get along on 
less than three hours of prayer." We can hardly think too highly of the 
apostolic ministries of John Wesley, but I fear that 'we seldom rightly 
appraise the significance of those early hours of prayer each day wherein 
this dynamic life was charged with its spiritual power. John Knox saved 
Scotland. It was his prayers that terrified the tyrannical Mary. We are 
told that the study walls of Richard Baxter were stained with prayer 
breath. No wonder Kidderminster had such a wonderful evangelist- 
pastor. David Brainerd prayed with a passion that few men have ever 
known; the savages of a wild to whom he went soon became communi- 
ties of splendid Christian men and women. And William Carey and 
Henry Martyn and Robert Murray McCheyno and others who have helped 
to stamp missions on every page of the last century's history learned 
through the journal of this flaming soul the secret of that prayer life that 
made them such mighty agencies in extending Christ's kingdom. The 
revival under Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century began with his 
famous call to prayer. It was in the Haystack Prayer Meeting at Wil- 
liams College that Mills and Judson were born into the missionary life 
and the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions was horn 
into Christian history. Moody was successful as an evangelist when the 
Christian people prayed; he failed when they didn't. Our New Testament 
tells us that the first home mission revival, Pentecost, followed a ten 
days' prayer meeting, and that the first foreign missionary enterprise 
had its rise in a prayer service at Antioch, Syria. 

Can we not as followers of Christ learn the lesson of inspiration and 
all Christian history — that it is the praying Church that is the conquer- 
ing Church always, and none other? 

* * * 

In preaching on "Tho Reasonableness of Prayer," Rev. S. Van R. 
Trowbridge said: Unless we are willing to study in the school of Christ, 
we cannot expect to understand the power and the harmony of prayer. 
But as we advance in proficiency of character prayer becomes more and 
more reasonable. We learn to use the instrument. Prayer ceases to be a 
foreign mystery and becomes a familiar relationship, clear In its logic 
and deep In its conviction. Now let us face those arguments which have 
cut the nerve of prayer In so many lives. 

I. "You cannot change tho mind of God." But do you think tnat 
God has determined just what ho will do with your life In all tho mo- 
ments of the future, without any reference to your attitudo and the de- 



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clsions of your will? God has certain unchangeable principles of truth 
and Integrity, certain sublime purposes of love and fatherly compassion 
which he can never alter. But his method of dealing with a man varies 
and halts and progresses with the moods and with the behavior of the 
man. If the man shows responsiveness and readiness God's blessing 
comes into his life. If he asks, along the line of God's eternal purposes, 
he receives. If he seeks, he finds. If he knocks it is opened unto him. 

II. Another argument which attempts to negative prayer is that 
nature and mankind are under certain scientific laws with which God 
will not interfere. The man who takes this attitude fails to recognize 
the principle that when two laws bear upon a given case the higher law 
must control the lower. And in our human life there are certain spiritual 
laws which are superior to the material laws described by the sciences. 
When a moral purpose is to be achieved the highest law must operate, 
even if the lower law is for the moment suspended or overruled. 

III. The assumption is made that if God answers your prayer he will 
show partiality to you and thus wrong your neighbor. You are repre- 
sented as the favored child, and thus an attempt is made to distort the 
fairness and justice of God. Does not God cause his sun to shine on the 
just and on the unjust? Then why expect any special favors at his 
hand? In reply to this I would simply say that in all true prayer we must 
include our neighbors. How can we expect God to bless our lives if we 
are not continually seeking the advantage and the happiness of others? 
Ask God to give you more self-control, more nobility of character, more 
Christlikeness of spirit. Ask him to give your neighbor the same. There 
is no attempt at favoritism in such prayer. 

IV. But what will God do if you pray for one thing and your enemy 
prays for just the opposite? This was the problem that suggested itself 
time and time again to the mind of Abraham Lincoln as the men of the 
Confederate and Union armies lifted up their prayers to God by the 
campfires on both sides of the Potomac. But the comforting thought 
must come to us, as it came to him, that in the end "the judgments of 
the Lord are true and righteous altogether." My neighbor may be right 
and I may be wrong, or the reverse may be true. But in any case the 
patient justice of God can never be led astray. And even if a sword shall 
pierce my heart may God give me grace to see that his answer to my 
prayer is better than the one which I desired! 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Answered Prayer (339). 

He asked for strength that he might achieve; he was made weak 
that he might obey. 

He asked for health that he might do greater things; he was given 
infirmity that he might do better things. 

He asked for riches that he might be happy; he was given poverty 
that he might be wise. 

He asked for power that he might have the praise of men; he was 
given weakness that he might feel the need of God. 

He asked for all things that he might enjoy life; he was given Life 
that he might enjoy all things. 



PRAYER'S SURE ANSWER 



227 



He has received nothing that he asked for, all that he hoped for. 
His prayer is answered. He iB most blest. — Congregationalism 

Stonewall Jackson's Testimony (340). 
"I hare so fitted the habit in my mind that I never raise a glass of 
water to my lips without asking God's blessing; never seal a letter with- 
out putting a word of prayer under the seal; never take a letter from 
the post without a brief sending of my thoughts heavenward; never 
change my classes in the lecture room without a minute's petition for 
the cadets who go out and those who come in." 

Prayer Effective (341). 
In 1799, when the armies of Napoleon were sweeping over the Con- 
tinent, Massena, one of hiB generals, suddenly appeared on the heights 
above the little town of Feldkirk, on the frontier of Austria, with an army 
of 18,000 men. It was Easter Day, and as the morning sun glittered upon 
the weapons of the French, the town council hastily assembled to consult 
what was to be done. Should a deputation be sent to Massena, with the 
keyB of the town, and an entreaty for mercy, or should they attempt re- 
sistance? Then the old dean of the church stood up and said: "This is 
Easter Day. We have been counting on our own strength, and that 
fails. This 1b the day of our Lord'B Resurrection. Let ub ring the bells 
and have service as usual, and leave the matter in God's hands. We 
know only our weakness and not the power of God." Soon all at once 
from three or four church towers the bells began to chime joyous peals 
In honor of the day, and the streets were filled with worshippers hasten- 
ing to the house of God. The French heard with surprise and alarm the 
sudden clangor of joy bells, and concluded that the Austrian army had 
arrived in the night to relieve the place. Massena broke up hiB camp 
and before the bells had ceased ringing the Frenchmen were departing. 

"Shut the Door" (342). 
A man was standing in a telephone b»x trying to talk, but he could 
not make out the message. He kept saying: "I can't hear, I can't hear." 
The other man by and by said sharply: "If you'll shut the door you can 
hear." The door was not shut, and he could hear, not only the man's 
voice, but the street and shop noi8eB too! A great many Christians are 
going lean and hungry on the way, because they do not shut the door 
mora frequently that shuts them up with God, and silences for a while 
the din of worldllness. Jesus makes the shut door the condition of pe- 
culiar blessings from God. — Selected. 

The Higher and Lower Laws (343). 
A boy and a girl are crossing the Atlantic in a steamer. They find 
themselves far out at sea and the question arises, "Who makes the 
vessel go?" The girl is quite confident that the captain on the bridge 
makes the vessel go. She cannot prove It, but she believes it. The boy 
lookB over the steamer and becomes confident that the captain is too 
far from the whirling engines to really make them go. The girl tries to 
point out that the captain rules and controls In many ways. The boy 
doubts th« real authority and power of the captain. One day the cry is 



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heard, "Man overboard!" At once the captain rings the bell down in the 
engineroom, the steamer stops, the engines are reversed, a boat is low- 
ered, and after a diligent search the drowning man is rescued. The 
higher authority to reverse the movement of the ship was all the time 
resident in the captain, for he is responsible for the life of all the pas- 
sengers. But that higher law was not called into operation until the 
emergency arose. The mere mechanical law of the steam and the ma- 
chinery were secondary to the will of the captain. The girl had been 
right in her faith. The boy had been mistaken in his doubts. 

So it is in the realm of prayer. A young man has left home and is 
leading a wastrel's life. He is engaging in crooked business dealings. He 
is beginning to drink. His mother prays ardently and with tears for his 
rescue. The ordinary laws of nature would surely indicate that he will 
soon wreck his life. He is the man who has fallen overboard and unless 
the engines are reversed there is no hope for him. But just then an old 
friend looks up the spendthrift and leads him back to a worthy and pure 
life. Do you say that the hand of God is not in that work of rescue? 
Do you dare to say that the mother's prayer had nothing to do with it? 
There is no conflict in the laws of God. The higher law quietly and im- 
mediately controls the lower law, as when the pressure of the captain's 
hand reversed the movement of the ship and saved the life of a man. — 
Trowbridge. 

The Power of Prayer (344). 

A girl whom I know well was in a boat on the Solent with two or 
three young men. The boat was swept away by the current, and no ex- 
ertions of the rowers could get it back to shore. There was no help in 
sight. Suddenly the girl proposed prayer. With the glad consent of the 
others she knelt in the boat and asked for deliverance. When they 
opened their eyes, there was a man-o-war's long-boat coming towards 
them; and the sturdy rowers took the helpless boat to the ship, and 
finally restored the distressed crew to the shore. Now, it was asked, how 
could that prayer have caused the opportune arrival of that long-boat? 
But God, working in the tides and currents of the sea, was working also 
in the minds of the officers and men of H. M. ship. The impulse which 
ordered the boat to go from the ship's side, the impulse which directed 
the course and brought the boat within hail of those in distress, and all 
the subtle influences which go to determine the actions of men, bringing 
one definite concrete fact out of a wide choice of possibilities, were all 
effected, through God, by that effectual fervent prayer. 

Whenever, then, we give ourselves to intercession even for people 
unknown or far away, as we enter into the exercise of believing prayer 
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we actually bring to bear an avail- 
ing force on the situation. 

Away in foreign lands, they wondered how 

Their simple word had power; 
At home the Christians two or three had met 
To pray an hour. 

— R. F. Horton, D.D. 



XLVI. SPIRITUAL ALERTNESS. 



"Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the 
Son of Man cometh." — Matthew 25:13. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. J. J. Greenough comments on this need of vigilance as a safe- 
guard against worldliness as follows: 

We do conform to the world unless there is incessant and prayerful 
effort to pursue a nobler and more independent course. Conformity is 
easy. It is gliding softly with the stream. It calls for no moral resist- 
ance. To do as the great majority do, to follow the fashion of the day, to 
catch the fever which is in the air, to form our habits according to the 
pattern of our class or set, to be just as religious or irreligious as those 
among whom we move, to run after the pleasures and strive for the 
gains on which the great crowd about us sets its heart — all that needs no 
prayer, no self-repression, or soul energy of any kind. The veriest spir- 
itual drowsiness is capable of this. One needs to have the spirit thor- 
oughly awakened by God, to refuse conformity. For a young man to say, 
I will not live the life of the frivolous, pleasure-loving, God-forgetting 
youths about me; for a business man to say, I will follow no doubtful 
devices, however much they are the custom of the business world; for a 
woman to say, I will live for Christ, and not for the frivolities of the 
season; for a religious man to say, I will hold aloof from scenes where 
conscience would be offended, though tbe generality of the religious world 
pronounces them proper — I will not be content with the things that bring 
content to the crowd; I will give my chief thought to the higher prizes 
of life — all that requires a brave heart, a will strengthened from above, 
a spirit disciplined and nerved by daily prayer and conscious walk with 
God. Those who do this are indeed God's elect They are no more clay, 
but the strong men of the world, animated by the quenchless force and 
spirit of the Almighty; not moulded by the fashion of the world, but 
patterns and leaders that God gives to the world to shape it In better 
ways. Ah! we need to be stronger than the strong, we need to lay fast 
hold upon the heavenly power and love, if we are to carry out in any 
measure this injunction: "Be ye not conformed to this world." 

* * * 

On this subject of "Watchfulness," Rev. Dr. Marcus Dods said: 
The fisherman's wife who spends her time on the pier-heads watching 
for the boats, cannot be so well prepared to give her husband a com- 
fortable reception as the woman who is busy about her household work, 
and only now and again turns a longing look seaward. None of the 
virgins were on the watch for the bridegroom, but some of them were 
nevertheless prepared for his coming. It is Impossible for us to be always 
looking out for the coming of Christ, but it is quite possible to be always 
prepared for his coming. 

• ♦ * 

And Rev. Dr. J. II. Jowett Bald: Our life now may be a level, regular 
road; but tomorrow the character of the road will be changed, and we 



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shall be confronted by some great and unusual task. What shall we do? 
Tomorrow I may come into the presence of sickness. I may approach the 
shadow of calamity, I may come within the chill and loneliness 
of bereavement. I may meet King Death himself, the king of terrors, 
the shadow feared of man. Sickness, calamity, bereavement, death! 
These are inevitable. What shall I do? How shall I prepare for them? 

The best preparation for the morrow is quiet attention to today. 
"I ask Thee for a present mind, 
Intent on pleasing Thee." 

I must engage in the practice of trusting God in every passing 
moment of my life. What is this that is nearest to me? What is this 
duty? What is this task? What is this immediate trouble? Just here 
and now let me trust in God. Let me turn this present moment into 
happy confidence, and in this very season let me hold communion with 
my God. Let me fill the present with holy faith, and the changes that 
will surely come I shall not fear to see. In my trifles I can prepare for 
emergencies. Along a commonplace road I can get ready for the hill. 
In the green pastures and by the still waters I can prepare myself for the 
valley of the shadow. For when I reach the hill, the shadow, the emer- 
gency, I shall be God-possessed: He will dwell in me. Put your trust in 
the Lord and you will live well in the immediate present; live well in 
the immediate present and the emergency will not affright you. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
The Master Is Coming (346). 

The coming of Christ is certainly not a time when he draws near to 
the world, for he is in the world always. It must be, then, some time or 
times in which his presence becomes manifest. Of such comings there 
are several. Men discuss whicfi of them the text refers to — whether to 
the final coming for judgment, the coming to every man at death, or the 
coming of the Spirit at man's conversion. Let us not try to settle which 
it means. It cultivates the life of watchfulness within us, not to know 
when Christ is coming to judge the world, when he is coming to call us 
to himself by death, when he is coming by some great experience to our 
souls. 

Surely it is a blessed Father who lets us know that he is coming, 
but does not tell us when. We are like little children off at school, to 
whom the father sends word that he will bring them home, that so they 
may study all the harder and be ready, but does not fix the day lest they 
should drop their books altogether and merely stand looking for him out 
of the window, wasting their time. God will bring the shortness of life 
home to all of us so as to make us say, "We will work the harder," but 
he will not let it weigh upon any of us to set us thinking, "It Is not worth 
while to work." — Phillips Brooks. 

Now! (347). 

I went out from Dayton, Ohio, some time ago, to preach in a little 
country church. When I gave the invitation I was almost surprised to 
find thirty-five people come to the front. I was just about to leave the 
meeting to hurry into the city for another service, when I said, "Is there 
not another?" and away back against the wall an old man rose, about 



SPIRITUAL ALERTNESS 



231 



eighty-five years old. His hair was gray and thin, his hack was hent, his 
step was tottering, as he leaned upon his stick. When he reached the 
front, he dropped his stick and took my hand in his, saying, "I thought it 
might be my last chance," and he dropped upon his knees. But do not 
imagine for a moment that the last chance comes only at eighty-five. It 
may come now — Now! 

When Mr. Moody was conducting a mission like this in England, 
night after night a man came into the audience. He was a Cornish miner. 
One night as Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey were leaving the platform, they 
noticed him sitting under the gallery with a friend. Mr. Moody made his 
way over to him, and said to him, "Why are you here every night and why 
are you waiting?" He replied, "Sir, I said to my companion, 'I will never 
leave this building until I am saved.' " Mr. Moody that night led him 
to Christ. The next day there was an explosion in one of the mines, and 
many men were taken out, bruised, and bleeding and dying. This man 
waB among the wounded, and when they bent down he was fast passing 
away. When they took water to wash away the dirt from his face, he 
opened his eyes. His friend of the previous night was kneeling at his 
side, and the Cornish miner who was saved the night before was saying, 
"Jem, it is a good thing I settled it last night." And he waB gone. Oh, 
it would be a great thing for you to settle it now, while yet there Is 
hope. The door of mercy is open. I bid you enter In. — Chapman. 

We Haven't Much Time (348). 
This may be the last year of your life. 

We haven't much time. You cannot stay here long; you have got 
to go quickly; pretty soon you will be gone, and your hands will rest for 
a million years. Work hard. Don't whine because you have work; but 
thank God you have the chance to do it. Be so honorable in the world's 
industry, and bo eager to serve, that you will covet the hours you sleep. 

Pretty soon it will be time to stop; and a strange visitor will come by, 
and say: "Quit work!" You will say: "It is not night." But he will 
persist — "Quit work!" 

"It is only two o'clock; I have only just begun for the afternoon." 

"Quit work!" 

"It is not sundown yet; may I not work till night?" 
"Quit work!" 

And you will lay down your hammer on the anvil, with your hands 
black with the grime of the smithy, and you will go out with him, and he 
will say to you: "It Is time to quit work." 

And you will Bay: "Will I be back in the morning?" 
"No, not In the morning." 

"Will I be back tomorrow?" 

"No, not tomorrow." 

"Where are you taking me?" 

"I am taking you to a land very far off, and from whoBe T»ourne no 
traveler ever returns.' Come along. ThlB 1b the way." 
"Can't I go back once?" 

"No," and aomohow there Is a little BlernnoRB In his voice. 
But you will Bay: "I must go back a minute, only a mlnut*», JuBt 
once, to tell — " 



232 



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"No, come on!" 

O, who is it? It is the master, Death. You cannot go hack — not for 
a minute; no, you might just as well ask for a century as for a minute. 
Suddenly it will be pitch dark and Death will be gone, and you will be 
gone! 

Pray God that, when you get there, Christ will be with you, lest you 
perish in solitude. — Bishop Quayle. 

Almost In and Yet Lost (349). 

The "Royal Charter" had been around the world and was at last 
homeward bound. She had reached Queenstown, and then sailed for 
Liverpool; the message was telegraphed to Liverpool that she was almost 
home. Dr. William M. Taylor, a great New York preacher, was then in 
Liverpool as pastor, and the wife of the first mate of the "Royal Charter" 
was a member of his church. You may remember that the "Royal 
Charter" never came into Liverpool. An officer of my church told me 
that he waited on the dock all night, straining his eyes to catch a first 
glimpse of the vessel. The Lord Mayor of Liverpool was there. Bands 
of musicians and thousands of people waited to give her a welcome 
home. But the "Royal Charter" never came in. She went down in the 
night with almost all on board. They came to Dr. Taylor, and said, 
"Will you go and tell the wife of the first mate?" So he started off to 
tell her. As he laid his hand upon the door bell the door flew open, and a 
little girl sprang out, crying, "Oh, Dr. Taylor, I thought it was my papa. 
He is coming home today." The preacher said he felt like an executioner 
as he walked into the house. He found the table laid for breakfast, and 
the wife of the first mate stepped forward, her face shining, as she said, 
"Dr. Taylor, this is indeed a privilege, and if you will wait a little while, 
perhaps you will sit at our table with us, for my husband was on the 
'Royal Charter,' and he is coming home." 

Dr. Taylor says he looked at her a moment, while he steadied him- 
self and held on to a near-by chair and then said, "Poor woman, your hus- 
band will never come home. The 'Royal Charter' went down last night, 
and your husband is lost." He says that she threw her hands to her head, 
staggered for a moment, and then fell, and as she fell she cried, "O my 
God, so near home and lost." Yes, and some of you are as near as that 
Near by a mother's pleading; near by the minister's preaching; near by 
the missioner's singing. You are almost in. God keep you from reject- 
ing him. How far one may go towards home and still fall away! — 
J. W. Chapman. 



XLVII. WHEN WORK BECOMES WORSHIP. 

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, 
ye have done it unto me." — Matthew 25:40. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. Russell H. Conwell, in speaking of Christ's final reward of 
faithful service, said: When the time comes for him who has done 
good deeds to be received into the New Jerusalem, do you suppose he will 
go crawling up the stairs? Does the Bible tell us that the Christian will 
be received in that way? 

As the old Roman conquerors came back from the East, and brought 
with them the trophies of their victories, and marched through Rome, 
with their chariots, while their countrymen crowded the pavements, and 
welcomed them with music on every side and every indication of joy, so 
will the Christian be welcomed into the New Jerusalem; God and Christ 
and all the people who have gone before will welcome him. Ah! what a 
triumphal march that will be! One comes out to the front and says, 
"He is come. Why, I should not have been in heaven but for him!" And 
another says, "He is come! The one who divided his portion with me!" 
"The one who established the Bchool where I was educated!" "The one 
who helped the nation into liberty, and made it possible for me to wor- 
ship God!" "He is come!" "He is come!" All through that magnificent 
city it will resound, — to the throne of God himself. And he who has done 
his duty, and has done good deeds, and has worked faithfully, because of 
his love for Christ and God, will be received with all the triumph of 
heaven, and all the anthems of its beautiful music will be sounding his 
praise, and he will be known to all the city as one who has done some- 
thing good, for the sake of, and in the name of, and for the cause of, 
Jesus Christ 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
A Life of Faithful Service (350). 

A merry crowd of young people had run over in a launch that clear 
August morning to visit the North Island light. They scrambled laugh- 
ingly up the rocky path and then stood breathless, looking across the 
desolate pile of rocks, softened only by a few huckleberry bushes, and 
stunted firs. That was not quite all, either; for in a sheltered angle of 
the house, was a tiny garden of portulaca, marigolds, and zinnias. 

The keeper and his wife and son met the visitors — the two men with 
a courtesy none the less genuine because it was silent, the little gray- 
haired woman with vivid Interest. The eagerness in her bright, dark 
eyes appealed irresistibly to one of the girls. She dropped behind as the 
crowd trooped after the men, and turned back to the little woman. 

"I've seen lights before," she said. "I wonder if you'd let me come 
In and make you a little call Instead?" 

She was almost startled at the sudden Illumination of the old face. 

"Would I let you, dearie? I guess you don't know what It's like to 
live on a rock. I tell father and William the only time I onvy them la 



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when visitors come, and go tagging off after them. Most always they 
have to hurry right off as soon as they've seen the light, and I scarcely 
get a look at them." 

The girl leaned forward, moved by a sudden impulse. 

"How do you endure it?" she asked. "They have the light, of course; 
but you, off here alone — O, I don't see how you endure it!" 

The wise old eyes met the young blue ones with quiet humor. "O, 
there's lots of ways of enduring," the keeper's wife said. "I think of 
farmers' wives as far off from folks as I am, with only land all around 
them. I was born in sight of the sea, and it doesn't seem to me I could 
live away from it. Then I belong to the light, too — you have to if you 
keep one; and if I don't touch the lamp, I cook for the men that do, and 
that counts. They'd get blue and queer in a hurry if they had to do for 
themselves. I guess that's the real secret of it. You don't get very 
much out of sorts as long as you've got somebody to do for — and I guess 
most people have that, if they'd only realize it." 

The girl drew a long breath. "Thank you," she said, "It is a real and 
very helpful lighthouse sermon." — Classmate. 

The Christ Life (351). 
There was a sweet-faced Salvation Army lassie, with a remarkable 
endowment of power to stir and uplift multitudes. She was 
requested to come and speak to the students of Chicago University. Her 
"scoop" bonnet concealed a scar where once she had been hit by a brick 
from the hand of some one in an angry mob. She told the simple story 
of her work. She talked about the dens and dives in which the Salvation 
Army lassies went to nurse the sick, scrub floors, feed the hungry, cheer 
the sad. She pictured the pathos of the people's lives, their heartaches, 
their misery. Then she told why she pitied them, and ministered to them 
— because she was constrained by One who spent his earthly life going 
about among the miserable, healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, touch- 
ing blind eyes, unstopping deaf ears, and gladdening burdened hearts. 
She did not weep, but her hearers did. The hard-headed students and 
iceberg professors were melted by the simplicity and earnestness of her 
story, and the verdict of the university audience was that, without try- 
ing to do it, she had eclipsed all the great orators who had preceded her 
on that platform. But it was not her words alone; it was her life, so 
thoroughly given up to saving others that Christ spoke through her. She 
was Maude Ballington Booth, a woman with the heroic, unselfish spirit 
of Esther. 

Ministering to Christ Through Men (352). 
Jesus is not visibly with us today. But everyone to whom we can 
minister, everyone who needs our help, stands before us as Christ's rep- 
resentative, and if we give that help from love to Christ, the Master 
accepts it as though it was done directly to him. This is the very 
essence of religion — ministering to men with the love of God impelling 
us to it. 

For the Good of Our Fellows (353). 
There is a growing sense, especially among our thoughtful men and 
women, that first of all their talents and their labors should be given to 



WHEN WORK BECOMES WORSHIP 



236 



the good of their fellows, and only secondarily for the accumulation of 
money and fortune. An interesting example of this is given in Munsey's 
Magazine, in an article headed, "Two Famous American Surgeons." 
These surgeons are the two Mayo brothers, in the small town of 
Rochester, Minn. They are so noted that students come from all quar- 
ters of our land and from abroad to witness their marvelous surgery. 
These are all welcome to witness their work. "The Mayos talk while 
they operate. Every incision, the applications used, the whys and where- 
fores are fully explained to the students, who have, perhaps, traveled 
thousands of miles to learn, for the Mayos have no secrets in their pro- 
fession. They are working for humanity, and what knowledge they have 
gained of their life-giving art they freely pass to their brothers." 

It is the true spirit, one which we all honor. It is the spirit of the 
Christian. The more we can do for the good of our fellows, the more we 
will commend the Lord whom we love. Men care little for wordy pro- 
fessions, but much for actions. Deeds of Christlike service for others 
witness for him powerfully among men. 

"The Least of Thete" (354). 
D. L. Moody was sitting in his study when a stranger appeared, and 
introduced himself as a convict, having just served out his time in the 
penitentiary. He was in the world without friends or employment, and 
he had come to ask aid of the evangelist. Moody's little daughter com- 
ing into the room, she was told to go and kiss the stranger, which she 
did. Dinner being announced, he was invited by Mr. Moody to partake 
with him. Under a sense of his unworthiness he declined, but finally 
yielded. The kiss of the innocent child and the Chrlstly kindness of her 
father made, it is said, a new man of him. 

Too Great to Serve? (355). 

A certain young minister in his first parish was hard put to it to 
find teachers enough for the Sabbath School. So he went over the list of 
church members until he came to the name of Judge Andrews, who was 
considered the most learned lawyer In the State. 

After some days the young minister found courage to call upon the 
Judge. 

"I have come to see you," he said, "about a class of boys in the Sab- 
bath School. They have recently lost their teacher, and I wish you would 
take them." 

"What! I take a class of boys in the Sabbath School?" 

"Yes, sir. You could hold the boys. They all respect you greatly. 
You have no Idea what a hero you are to them." 

"But — but — I teach a class of boys? No, no. I could not! It's a 
very busy term of court." 

"But It Is the buBy people, judge, who do the best work, and we 
need a splendid teacher for that class. Won't you try it?" 

"Couldn't think of It. No, no, I couldn't, possibly." 

And the judge closed the Interview rather abruptly. 

But the Sabbath morning the minister was surprised to receive a 
call from Judge Andrews. He began with BtranKe hesitation: 

"I have called to say that— I would try that class. I thought It all out 



236 GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



after you left. It was sheer pride that made me refuse. I thought I was 
too great a man to teach a class of boys. I tell you, sir, I am a hypocrite. 
I have tried to play the 'distinguished Christian gentleman,' and I have 
been worthless in the kingdom. Put me to work. I do not know how to 
teach boys. I am too ignorant. But I mean to learn." 

At the close of the first year in the Sabbath School, Judge Andrews 
said to the minister: "Teaching that class has been the greatest thing 
that ever happened to me. I never had any definition of service before. 
I shall never cease to thank God for opening my eyes to see myself as I 
really was." — Youth's Companion. 

Helpfulness (356). 
When we begin to be like God we begin to be helpful. We think 
we love each other, but the love is only a mere sentiment until it has 
been wrought into sacrificial act, into service which costs. Personal help- 
fulness is the test as well as the measure of the quality of the mind of 
Christ that is in us. Evermore people need to be helped. This does not 
mean that we are to carry their burdens, pay their debts, do their work, 
fight their battles. Such helpfulness does harm rather than good. We 
help others truly when we make them strong and brave, that they may 
carry their own burdens and meet their own struggles. Helpfulness 
should cheer, encourage, inspire, impart larger visions and greater hope 
and confidence. There are men everywhere who are pressed, beleaguered, 
ready to sink down and perish, whom strong brotherly sympathy would 
save. They are in sorrow, disappointment has staggered them, or they 
have been defeated in their purposes. To be able to help these is the 
highest service we can render in this world. "To be a strong hand in the 
dark to another in the time of need," says Hugh Black, "to be a cup of 
strength to a human soul in a crisis of weakness, is to know the glory 
of life." There would seem to be no limit to the possibilities of this 
higher helpfulness. The true Christian life is reached by the emptying 
of self and the filling of the emptiness with Christ. When Christ is in 
us we are able to help others with his strength. 

Rewards of Service (357). 

A gentle, sweet-voiced woman of seventy, born and bred in an Eng- 
lish town, has told this story of her youth and age: 

"I left school at sixteen. My mother was wise enough to take advan- 
tage of my zeal for helping folk, and to direct it. She set me to teach 
some children who came to our house three evenings a week for an 
hour. Presently some of the mothers, who could not read or write, 
joined my class. I taught them a little sewing and cooking as well as 
the three R's. In four years there were about twenty children and women 
who had learned something in that small, primitive evening school. 

"Then I married and went to America to live. Years passed, and my 
only daughter grew up, married an Englishman, and found her home in 
my old English town. Then came the wonder. My daughter was speed- 
ily surrounded by a group of loyal, although humble friends. My few 
seeds of teaching have come back to my daughter and her children in an 
abundant harvest of gratitude and service. In the years that have 
elapsed since my daughter's marriage, the comfort of her little family 



WHEN WORK BECOMES WORSHIP 



S37 



and often its safety have rested in the hands 6t these devoted women. 
The hours of that evening school were the best investment I ever made 
from a worldly point of view, and judged by spiritual standards, they have 
brought me a fortune." — Youth's Companion. 

Toiling For Humanity For Christ (358). 
The hand, more than any other part of the body, reveals its owner. 
A bit of skin displaced, the new takes on the old lines — markings so 
reliable that the "thumb mark" has come to have a place of scientific 
accuracy in our penal sysiems. We read that Napoleon, as all the Bona- 
partes, had perfectly modeled hands; that Nero, long after he had mur- 
dered his mother, caught sight of some beautiful hands which stirred a 
memory. "Of whose did they remind him? Ah, yes! his mother's!" He 
put his hands over his eyes, and shuddered away — let us hope, from the 
foul deed. 

There is, in all the world, nothing so beautiful as a mother's hands. 
But theirs need not be, rarely is, the faultless white perfection of an 
Agrippina. The tracings of loving care and toil, the parchment quality 
of faithfulness to humdrum task — this it is that ennobles and makes 
sacredly beautiful many a pair of twisted misshapen hands. 

Perhaps the best known hands in the world are those "Praying 
Hands" so freely displayed in the quaint old city of Nuremberg, where 
in a house still standing, sketched and painted one Albert Durer. The 
story goes that a monk, possibly his own brother, stood watching him as 
he tilled his canvas with beauty. He threw up his hands in an attitude 
of adoration, saying humbly, "Ah, brother, if only I could paint like that." 

"Brother," said Durer, "if only my hands showed, as do yours, that 
I had toiled for humanity." He left off painting, and fell to sketching 
rapidly the hands and the loosely turned-back cuffs of the man's robe. 
Such hands Savonarola must have had. Madonnas and crosses and cru- 
cifixes there are In abundance, many of them marvelously beautiful; but 
to many those "Praying Hands" must ever remain the last word of faith 
and adoration. Veined, ascetic, slenderly tapering, they tell of flesh sub- 
dued, of peace through travail, of "I believe! help Thou my unbelief." — 
Morrison. 



XLVIII. SACRIFICING SELF FOR CHRIST. 



"Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up hla 
cross and follow me." — Mark 8:34. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

In preaching on this theme of "Self Denial," Rev. H. E. Manning used 
the following divisions: 

L In the first place, without the crossing and denying of self there 
can be no purifying of the moral habits. Without a true compunction 
and a tender conscience, purity of heart, and the energy of a devout mind 
set free from the thraldom of evil, no man can have fellowship with 
Christ, and no man can have these without self-denial. 

II. And so, again, even with those who have for a while followed 
Christ's call, how often do we see the fairest promise of a high and ele- 
vated life marred for want of constancy. They had no endurance, for 
they had no self-denial. A self-sparing temper will make a man not only 
an utter contradiction to his Lord, but even to himself. 

III. Without self-denial there can be no real cleaving of the moral 
nature to the will of God. I say that, to distinguish between a passive 
and seeming attachment and the conscious energetic grasp of will by 
which Christ's true disciples cleave to their Master's service. 

IV. We have need to ask ourselves: 1. In what do we deny our- 
selves? It would be very hard for most men to find out what one thing, 
in all the manifold actions of their daily life, they either do or leave 
undone, simply for Christ's sake. 2. And if we cannot find anything in 
which we deny ourselves already, we must needs resolve on something 
in which we may deny ourselves henceforward. In things lawful and 
innocent, and, it may be, gainful and honorable and in keeping with our 
lot in life; and such thingB as the world, by its own measure, esteems to 
be necessary things; we may really try ourselves, we may find matter 
for self-denial. 

* * * 

Ambrose Shepherd, D.D., said: The earth, says John Ruskin, Is 
full of lost powers. No soul perishes, he goes on to say, but if we could 
only read its true history we should find that not a thousandth part of its 
possible work had been done. Allowing for the characteristic way of 
putting this statement, there Is truth in iL How many of us know that 
what we are, at what we are pleased to call our best, is but an Installment 
of what we might be by an honest response of the moral will to the offer 
of Divine grace and help? This does not mean that we are to seek hard- 
ships, to Impose sacrifices upon ourselves, or to choose for ourselves a 
difficult and perilous path and Insist upon taking that path. Wo are not 
asked to willfully add to our burden, or shrink from such relief as the 
provldonco of life places within our reach and evidently Intends us to 
accept For the admonition, "Love not the world, neither the things that 
ore In the world" simply means: Detach yourselves from tho spirit of the 
world. 



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ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Things to be Given Up (359). 

"Just what things must I give up?" To this the Bible answer is, 
that you must surrender everything that hinders your growth in grace. 
If certain practices, or an attendance upon certain places, hinders your 
spiritual progress, then be done with them! Wherever there is doubt in 
your mind in regard to an amusement, give your Master the benefit of the 
doubt, and stay out of it. Just on this doubtful territory it is that we 
see so many unhappy falls. We also firmly believe that Christians ought 
to surrender very often their rights to lawful things; for by so doing they 
may remove stumbling blocks out of the path of others, and strengthen 
their own graces. The Greek racer denied himself many lawful indul- 
gences. So should a follower of Jesus whenever self-denial will increase 
his spiritual sinew. Too much is said in these days against "asceticism;" 
but the danger of the Church does not lie in that direction. Satin cloaks 
are more in vogue than "hair shirts." 

Daily food is a lawful indulgence. But fasting is sometimes profit- 
able for both body and soul. Many luxuries of domestic life are lawful 
in themselves; to give them up in order to have more money for benevo- 
lent uses, or in order to discourage social extravagances, is a dictate of 
pure Christianity. John Wesley had a right to own silver plate, yet he 
nobly refused to possess more than two or three silver spoons "while 
so many poor people were lacking bread?" An excellent man in my con- 
gregation sold his carriage when he found that his horses were eating 
up his charity-fund too fast. My friend is no ascetic. He is a very sensi- 
ble and sunshiny Christian. If the same spirit which actuated him were 
more common in the Church, there would be fewer luxurious equipages, 
fewer wine bottles, fewer card tables, fewer sumptuous evening parties; 
but there would be more missionaries in the West, and more Bibles in 
China and Japan. Self-indulgence lives under the clouds. Self-denial 
soars above them. — Selected. 

Self Denial (360). 

The worm gives up its existence, and wraps itself in a cell for a 
brief season. It gives up its earthly enjoyment that it may become a 
lovely butterfly and enter into a higher existence. 

All domestic animals and fowls forego their wild, personal freedom 
for the sake of serving man, and receive for their self-sacrifice a larger 
life and kinder protection. 

Man is at his best when he becomes conscious of the higher life that 
is outside and above himself. He rises out of self when he is awakened 
to a consuming passion for divine living and crucifies the old self by deny- 
ing it expression. 

No one but Christ can lift him out of himself. Then, like the awaken- 
ing chrysalis, a new and happy existence bursts upon him. Once like the 
worm, he was contented to live in the dust and feed on refuse. Now he 
soars aloft on wings of faith and obedience. He is a new creature in 
Christ Jesus. 

Not Counting the Cost (361). 
A young woman, talking with two missionaries who had returned 



SACRIFICING SELF FOR CHRIST 



241 



from the scene of the Armenian massacres of a few years ago, asked in 
an awestruck tone, "But weren't you awfully afraid of being killed your- 
selves?" 

"Ah! my dear lady," came the smiling answer, "you see that wasn't 
any of our lookout" 

The Worst Calamity (362). 
The very worst calamity, I should say, which could befall any human 
being would be this — to have his own way from his cradle to his grave; 
to have everything he liked for the asking, or even for the buying; never 
forced to say: "I should like that, but I can't afford it; I should like 
this, but I must not do it." Never to deny himself, never to exert him- 
Belf, never to work, and never to want That man's soul would be in aa 
great danger as if he were committing great crimes. — Charles Kingsley. 

Self-Giving Love (363). 
Heroic Christianity loves even unto death. That is its motive, that 
its power; that its soul-winner. I have read of a Sunday School that was 
asked the question: "Where is Jesus Christ?" and that one little fellow 
answered: "Oh, he lives in our alley now." The aJley where he lived 
was at one time noted for its poverty, dirt and misery; for its women 
quarreling, its men drinking and getting drunk, and for its children run- 
ning about uncared for and sadly neglected. That was all changed in 
this way: A Christian woman offered her services to the minister of the 
parish where that alley was, in order that she might go there and help 
those people to become better. "You'd better not attempt to go there," 
said the minister; "it is a very bad district" "Then," replied the brave 
woman, "it must the more need our sympathy and help." And the woman 
went a lady of refinement and culture, through whose influence the alley 
was transformed into being a clean, wholesome place instead of dirty, a 
place where mothers no longer quarreled, but prayed; where men were no 
longer drunken, but sober, and where little children, instead of being 
neglected, were cared for and mothered. Jesus got into those lives, and 
Jesus lived in that alley. It was all the result of a Christianity which 
must give self In loving service of otherrs and give where the "more 
need" was. — Rev. Thomas Nicholson. 

He Saved Not Himself (364). 
Shortly after the death of Phillips Brooks, his oldest brother said to 
Dr. McVickar, "Phillips miKht have saved himself, and so prolonged his 
life. Others do; but he was always giving himself to any who wanted 
him." Dr. McVickar answered, "Yes, indeed, he might have saved him- 
self, but in doing so he would not have been Phillips Brooks. The glory 
of his life was that he did not save himself." Ah! the glory of any life 
Is that it doeB not save itself. Like Mary, Bishop Brooks gave the best he 
had to God and humanity, and that is why the fragrance of his 111* hua 
filled two continents with its sweetness. — The Christian Herald. 

Heroes Wanted (365). 
There is always a call for volunteers In every time of stress or dan- 
ger. Men are needed who will look danger in tho eyes and still ro for- 
ward. Blindfold courage Is not tho sort that is wanted. The kind that 



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keeps on is that dauntless brand, which, knowing all about it, yet faces 
it serenely with simple and selfish devotion that takes account only of 
the thing to be accomplished. The foreman of a Chicago factory led a 
crowd of working girls out of a blazing building, then turned to rush 
back into the smoke and flame. "I think there is someone on the fourth 
floor!" he cried as he disappeared. A volunteer followed, but the heat 
and smoke became unbearable and he shouted to the foreman to come 
back and escape with him. "I could just see Parr through the smoke," 
he said afterwards; "he was going on." That is the splendid eulogy of 
all brave men. — Anna Burnham Bryant. 

Faithful at Every Cost (366). 
One day the prisoners at Andersonville were called together by the 
keeper, and told that if they would enlist in the Confederate army they 
would escape the sufferings of prison life. Soon they would be able to 
go home, for the Union armies were being defeated, and the war would 
quickly end. 

Then a half-starved man said, "Mr. Officer, may I speak a word?" 

Permission being given, that shadow of a man stepped to the front, 
faced his comrades, and exclaimed: "Attention, squad right flank, back 
to death! March!" The command was instantly obeyed, not a man fal- 
tered, and with resolute step those men marched back to their quarters, 
and some of them to death. 

The world is full of people who are faithful to the interests of life. 
There may be nothing spectacular in their lives, but they conscientiously 
persevere in the routine of life's duties. Sir Walter Scott relates a touch- 
ing story of an old teacher. He was fatally smitten while teaching his 
class. The end soon came. This faithful teacher "conceived that he was 
still in school, and after some expressions of approval or censure, he 
said: "But it grows dark — the boys may dismiss." Instantly he passed 
into the presence of .the Great Teacher. 

"Be thou faithful unto death," in position high or low, and the Master 
himself "will give thee a crown of life." Though life be spent in obscure 
service, still we may be faithful in all things. — William T. Hart, D.D. 

Renouncing the Flesh (367). 

Self-indulgence is the besetting sin of the times; but if you long to 
be a strong, athletic Christian, you must count the cost and renounce the 
things of the flesh. It will cost you the pulling up of some old favorite 
sins by the roots and cutting loose from some entangling alliances, and 
some sharp conflicts with the tempter; it will cost you the submitting of 
your will to the will of Christ; but you will gain more than you ever gave 
up. — Theodore L. Cuyler. 



XLIX. THE GREAT COMMANDMENT. 

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." — Mark 12:30. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Bishop W. F. Anderson, in preaching on this "Love as an Uplifting 
Power," developed the following points: 

L God always provides an environment for every form of life which 
he creates. The environment for our physical lives is the free air which 
we breathe. Love is meant to be the universal environment of the life 
of mankind, and one of the chief reasons why up to this time the members 
of the human family have not more largely entered into their divine 
estate is in the fact that up to this time in the progress of the world 
society fails so largely to provide God's environment for the life of man 
as it is found in the law of love. The solution of the problems of modern 
society Is to be found in the acceptance of the great divine doctrine of 
human brotherhood. Upon his arrival in this country as ambassador from 
Great Britain, Mr. Bryce sent word back that he had arrived in a coun- 
try where business is king. The Church of Jesus Christ is set in the 
midst of these relationships to so permeate our life and so fashion our 
institutions that we shall bring in the regnancy of love everywhere. 

II. But God's love is also the interpreter of the life of man. No 
one can see very far into any subject until he comes to love that subject. 
The principle of the understanding of character is to be found in the 
magic power of love. "He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is 
love." It would be a logical contradiction to suppose that a loveless being 
could Interpret a loving God. We learn much from God by the study of 
nature, and much more by the study of his revealed will, but the high- 
est visions of the unspeakable loveliness of the divine character are 
revealed to us as we love our way into the great deep things of his own 
eternal life. 

III. God's love is also the endowment of the life of mankind. Love 
in some form is natural to man; he is bound to love something. The 
problem of his life is to direct his capacities for love along the highest 
lines; and If we only understood more clearly that as inevitably as the 
needle points to the pole one becomes like that which he loves, we would 
be far more careful in the choice of the objects of our love. The signifi- 
cance of the great commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all 
thy mind" is In the fact that when one begins to love God he begins to 
grow like God. There Is a very essential difference between the natural 
love and the Christ love. The natural love loves its own by kindred, by 
congeniality, by taste, loveB that that 1b loving and lovely and lovable; 
but the Christ love overleaps all these distinctions and loves the unloving, 
the unlovely, and the unlovable, In ordor that by loving them It may lift 
them up. Human life never becomes redemptive In quality until It par- 
takes of the sacrificial quality shown forth so beautifully in tho life of 
our Lord. As one enters Into the Christ life he may feel that he Is living 



244 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



God's life with God. Certainly there is nothing that can give such trans- 
cendent dignity and significance to life as to live essentially the life 
which God lives. 

* * * 

Prof. Henry Drummond in his remarkable address on "Love," con- 
cluded it by saying: 

The life of love is an eternal life; and there is no worse fate can 
befall a man than to live and grow old alone, unloving and unloved. To 
be lost is to live in an unregenerate condition, loveless and unloved; and 
to be saved is to love — for God is love. So that this thing is worth do- 
ing. It is worth giving time to. No man can become a saint in his sleep ; 
and to fulfill the condition requires a certain amount of prayer and medi- 
tation and time, just as improvement in any direction, bodily or mental, 
requires a certain amount of preparation and time. Address yourselves 
to that one thing, and have this supreme thing engraven upon your 
character. You will find as you look back upon your life that the 
moments that stand out above everything else are the moments when 
you have done things in a spirit of love. "He that loveth is born of 
God;" and above all the transitory pleasures of life there stand forward 
those supreme moments when we have been enabled to do kindnesses 
to those around about us. I have seen almost all the beautiful things 
God has made; I have enjoyed almost every pleasure that God has 
planned for man; and yet I can look back, and I see standing out above 
all the life that has gone four or five short experiences when the love of 
God reflected itself in some poor imitation, some small act of love of 
mine; and that is the thing that I get comfort from now. 

And let me remind you that in the book of Matthew, where the 
great judgment day is depicted for us in the imagery of One seated upon 
a throne and dividing the sheep from the goats, the test of a man then 
is not "How have I believed?" but "How have I loved?" The test of 
religion — the final test of religion — is not religiousness, but love. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
The Master Motive (368). 

Love Is the master motive in the achievement of the Christ-life, be- 
cause without its kindly and exalting influence all other motives tarnish 
and grow dull. The gifts of prophecy, and eloquence, and science, and 
charity, and even self-sacrifice, are dependent upon the inspiring influ- 
ence of the Christ love. 

The Christ love is the master motive because of its restraints. It 
Is the master motive because of its heroisms. It is the master motive 
because of its permanence. The Christ love holds us back from doing 
and thinking and feeling a great many things that we would otherwise 
rush into. The Christ love also inspires us to attempt tasks which appear 
to be beyond our strength and which would otherwise entirely discourage 
us. The Christ love abides as the permanent dynamic, when earthly 
things decay and change. The restraints and the heroisms and the per- 
manence of love combine to show that it is the master motive, the one 
prevailing power which will give us victory in temptation and progress 
in our pilgrimage toward God. — Rev. S. Van R. Trowbridge. 



THE GREAT COMMANDMENT 



245 



Love is the Heat of the Universe (369). 
Philosophers tell us that without heat the universe would die. And 
love in the moral universe is what heat is in the natural world. It is 
the great germinating power. It is the ripening influence. It is the 
power by which all things are brought steadily up from lower to higher 
forms. — Beecher. 

"The Lever of Affection" (370). 

Dr. Martineau says, "There are cases of minds that out of the thought 
of self can do nothing; but, press the lever of their affections, and, though 
it seems to have nothing whereon to rest, you will move their world." 

Now, that leads many of us into a cul de sac. "Be pure and ye shall 
know the love of God." What is the use of that, if we first need the 
impulse of the love in order to be pure? Ah! but there is an escape! 
How? Why, through Jesus Christ our Lord. As a matter of fact, as part 
of our consciousness in our efforts towards good, there stands our knowl- 
edge of the historical Jesus, whom, literally, having not seen we love. 
There is no other word to describe the tenderness, the loyalty and the 
desire with which every one of us must think of Christ. — Rev. J. P. R. 
Sclater. 

Love to God the Motive Power (371). 
Why did Father Damien endure the unspeakable suffering of life in 
the leper settlement of Molokai? Why is Edmund Robbins rejoicing in 
the triumph of clean government in the very ward which used to be the 
disgrace of Chicago? It is because the master motive has possessed 
these lives, and they are able to see through the superficial externals, 
right into the priceless temple of the heart! When other motives have 
made their subtle appeals, these men have resisted with unfailing cour- 
age. Miss Jane Addams tells, in her early experience at Hull House, of 
how she began to arouse an interest in legislation to prevent child labor 
in Illinois. At that time, there were no laws to check and control the 
greed of the factory owners. In a few weeks a most generous offer was 
made by these very manufacturers to give $20,000 outright toward her 
plan for a clubhouse and home for working girls. At first she was thrilled 
with the Joy of seeing her plan fulfilled. But she was given to under- 
stand that there was one important condition, that she should not meddle 
in promoting any legislation about child labor! She was given the hint 
that she did not understand the labor conditions and that she had better 
keep her hands off. But as soon as she realized that the large gift was 
being offered to divert her from the cause of Justice she refused the gift 
with heartfelt Indignation. And today Illinois leads all the other State3 
in the matter of legislation protecting the interests of children! The 
Christ love was surging In Miss Addams' heart, and she Instantly rejected 
the stratagem which was intended to purchase her acquiescence in the 
evil customs so profitable to the millionaires. — Trowbridge. 

Love Fertilizes the Life (372). 
Dr. Watson (Ian Maclaren) tells of once hearing a plain sermon In 
a little country church. It was a layman, a farmer, who preached, but 
Dr. Watson says he never heard so impressive an ending to any ser- 
mon as he heard that day. After a fervent presentation of the gospel, 



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the preacher said with great earnestness: "My friends, why is it that I 
go on, preaching to you, week by week? It is just this, — because I can't 
eat my bread alone." That is the Master's own burden — his heart ia 
breaking to have men share with him the blessings of life. He cannot 
bear to be alone in his joy. There is no surer test of love for Christ than 
the longing to have others love him. 



L. THE GREAT COMMISSION. 

"Go ye Into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." — 
Mark 16:15. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. Robert F. Horton, in preaching on "The Logic of Missions," 
emphasized the following truth: 

All do not immediately see what I call the logic of foreign missions. 
But surely you will see it from this point of view — the first duty is to 
proclaim the truth that God has reconciled the world to himself in Jesus 
Christ, and that he calls men to himself by faith in propitiation, because 
that truth proclaimed in any part of the world establishes the first seeds, 
or the first foundations, of the Christian Church. Take, for example, 
what happened in Japan. You remember that in 1854, when the British 
fleet was lying in Nagasaki Bay, the Japanese Government was extremely 
anxious that we should not land, and General Wakasa was appointed to 
watch the fleet and to prevent the British troops from landing. It hap- 
pened that as he rowed about the bay in fulfillment of his duty, some 
careless sailor on one of those English men-of-war had dropped his New 
Testament overboard. Probably he cared very little for his New Testa- 
ment, and he parted with it without any regreL But it so happened that 
General Wakasa picked it up out of the sea, and he was curious to know 
what this book was. He got an interpreter to tell him what it was. He 
became interested in it He procured a Chinese New Testament and 
read it through — it brought him to Christ. Twelve years later General 
Wakasa came down to Verl eck, the missionary, and asked to be baptized 
because he had found the Saviour. Your British sailor let his New Tes- 
tament fall into the sea, but that New Testament converted the general 
of the Japanese army, and his family, and the whole circle of his friends, 
and planted the blessed truth of reconciliation in the islands of Japan. 
That is the logic of missions. The first duty is to let the world know, 
and let every race of men know, to have it in every language, to put it 
within reach of every human being, that "God is in Christ reconciling 
the world unto himself." 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott says: Christ sent his disciples forth to 
preach. The object of the church is to inspire men with the spirit of 
Christ, and it is not much use to go to church unless you get out of the 
church something you are going to give out somewhere else. The mes- 
sage of good will, the spirit of service, an attitude of helpfulness — this 
is the spirit of Christianity as I read it. Love, service, sacrifice, God 
loving, God serving, God asking of them no sacrifice, but bearing himself 
In his own heart the burden of their sins and their sorrows. And to be a 
Christian is to get from the church, from the Bible, from the reservoir, 
from the heart of God himself this spirit of love, service, sacrifice, and 
then carry it out in life. Whenever a church has begun to think about 
itself and forgotten the world outside It haB begun to decay; and when- 
ever that decay begins there comes out of it a revolting and protesting 



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spirit of service. The great movement of the nuns' sisterhood in the 
Middle Ages was a movement toward service though still tied to the pagan 
notion of sacrifice; and today in Protestant America men and women are 
going out from the church, men and women who have got the inspiration 
from the church without knowing it, and are working in social settle- 
ments and other philanthropies in the spirit of him who came, "not to 
be ministered to, but to minister." 

* * * 

In dwelling upon "The Great Commission" as Matthew states it, 
Rev. Dr. Henry N. Cobb said: 

These words become his lips who spake them, and his alone. They 
are the climax to which all that went before led up. They give to the 
gospel story its deepest meaning. They crown it with its highest glory. 
They declare Jesus in power and purpose Saviour of mankind. They 
constitute his imperative, perpetual commission to his disciples. 

How comprehensive their content! — "all power," sufficient for all 
undertakings, oppositions, difficulties, delays and triumphs; "all na- 
tions," — not one to be left undiscipled; the entire race, redeemed by his 
blood, to be discipled and made one in him; "all the days," — each day 
and all day, till time shall end. 

How vital their connection — the foundation fact his universal power; 
on this fact, the precept, "Go!" to this precept joined the promise, "Lo, 
I am with you!" Power, precept, promise, all so joined that they cannot 
be dissevered. No power? then no obedience. No obedience? then no 
presence. No presence? then no power. 

Lord, by thy power make thy people willing, and by thy presence 
give them power to obey thy precept, that so thy glory may soon fill the 
earth! 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Missionary Indifference (373). 
One of the most pathetic letters in the annals of foreign missions 
was that one written by Adoniram Judson, from Burmah, to the churches 
which he represented. He had gone forth full of holy zeal; consecrated; 
heroically ready for sacrifice. He lay in prison seventeen months, in a 
foul dungeon. 

In some way he got the impression that the home church was indif- 
ferent. With a heart bursting with grief he wrote them: "I thought 
you were deeply interested in my work and you were not even thinking 
about it. I thought you were praying for me and you did not even know 
whether I was alive or dead." 

Responsive Zeal (374). 

When Robert Moffat was home on a furlough in Scotland, he was 
wont to exclaim: "In Africa, I can see the smoke of a thousand villages 
without a Saviour." In a public address that striking sentence fell upon 
the ears of David Livingstone, and his attention was at once turned to 
Africa. Hitherto Livingstone had planned to go to China, but the opium 
war was in progress and for the time being that country was impossible. 
These words of Dr. Moffat mark the turning point in the career of Liv- 
ingstone and at once he came forward asking: "Do you think I will do 
for Africa?" 



THE GREAT COMMISSION 



249 



Facts and Figures (375). 
There are about 25,000 foreign missionaries and about $31,000,000 ia 
given annually for the work. One-third of the workers and one-half of 
the contributors come from the United States. Rev. Dr. Carroll said, not 
long since, that there is a healthy increase of missionary activity through- 
out the earth. It reveals growing liberality of the Christian forces. A 
greater number of men and women are willing to go out into the field, 
and the increasing numbers of converts and communicants and of the 
pupils in the missionary schools prove clearly that the Spirit of the Lord 
is at work, and the seed sown is bringing forth fruit abundant unto 
eternal life, but, at the same time, a glance at the table shows that after 
all only a small part of the work which ought to be done by the Christian 
Church among the multitudes of non-Christians throughout the earth is 
being performed, and that prayer should be made without ceasing that 
the Lord stir up his Church to greater zeal, to greater activity, to greater 
liberality and to greater consecration in the service of the Master. 

Apathy; How Conquered (376). 

I may speak to one who is apathetic, who has no missionary inter- 
est; or perhaps to one who had a missionary interest and who has lost 
it and your interest today is only the memory of what it once was in 
reality. You are living upon the memory of a past interest; you are liv- 
ing upon the fact of an enthusiasm which has spent itself, and in your 
deepest soul you know, perhaps that you are apathetic. 

I spoke on one occasion to a poor woman, and she said that her son 
was losing his mind. I said, "How do you know?" She said, "Because 
I notice that lately he has lost all interest in my distress." It is an awful 
thing to Bee an adult form with an infant mind. Do I speak to some in 
this attitude spiritually? Are you not afraid lest the spirit of Christianity 
is not in you? 

"Can my apathy be dispelled?" I hear some one say. Yes, it can be 
dispelled now. How? Surrender to the Spirit of God at this moment, 
in small thlngB. When you light a tire, how do you light It? Do you 
put the match to the logs? No. To the small wood? No. But to the 
paper, the most combustible, first Do that in your life. Do not put the 
match to the big things of tomorrow and next year, but put the match 
to the small things, the most combustible, the nearest. Let the Spirit 
of God conquer your physical moods, your sense of weariness and leth- 
argy. Let the Divine Spirit quicken your mortal body. Let him concen- 
trate the action of your mind, for without mental concentration no man 
can be a Btrong Christian. 

That vast vision of the world will expand his soul. A small vision 
makes a small man. A vast vision will call out the latent reserves in a 
life. The presidency of the United States has made men of whom per- 
haps we were not quite sure when they entered upon the position. The 
vastness of the responsibility challenged their manhood; and it Is this 
vast enterprise of the Spirit of God that challenges the last atom of your 
power. — Rev. John Douglass Adam, D.D. 

The Strength of the Claim (377). 
Because redemption brings blessings for the life that now Is — peace, 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



hope, joy, Christ — those benighted, hopeless, wretched brethren of mine, 
living under the pall of cruel superstition's midnight, have all the greater 
claim upon me. 

The Banner of the Cross (378). 

"I have seen," says Dr. William Barnes Lower, "the sunrise on Mount 
Blanc, and have watched it kiss the snowy summit of rock-ribbed Ranier; 
I have watched the crescent moon from the Hill of the Pnyx as it slowly 
rose and hung its evanescent beams in shadowy draperies around the 
pillars of the Acropolis.: I have stood among the crumbling pilasters of 
the Temple of Karnak, as the silent stars looked down and sang their 
heavenly requiem to a race remembered only in its stupendous ruins; I 
have watched the golden sun as it sank to rest beyond the silvery waters 
of the Pacific, to rise on republics that were yet to be born in a day. 
Soul-inspiring, and grandly sublime as all these panoramas have been, 
the grandest sight that my vision yet has scanned is the sight of the flag 
of my native land, Old Glory, the flag of my country, as it floated from 
the tower of Robert College, in Constantinople. 

"Silhouetted against the ethereal blue, its sacred emblazonry kissed 
by every breeze, it heralded to the ships of the Bosphorus and to the 
nations that go by its message of inspiration to patriotism, its hope to 
the benighted, its warning to all treasonable alliances, and its prophecy 
of ultimate freedom to the human race." 

That flag on Robert College has been a veritable banner of the cross, 
floating over one of the most significant foreign mission enterprises ever 
established by man at the behest of Christ. 

One Reward of Obedience (379). 

A more unattractive creature would be hard to find than the old 
Eskimo woman, Omungu. She was an outcast because of sin, was a 
perfect shrew, and feared because of her vicious tongue. After a pro- 
longed illness she became almost helpless with paralysis. Annooghot- 
ungu was another Eskimo, but a Christian. She learned of Christ's for- 
giveness and how he will "in no wise cast out" those who come to him, 
and her courage in standing for her faith has been a great joy to the 
missionaries. She is a young woman, but took to her own little Eskimo 
igloo (home) this suffering, wicked woman, Omungu, caring for her most 
tenderly through the long nights and dark days of the hard Arctic win- 
ter. It was neither a pleasant nor an easy task, but while ministering 
to her body, Annoohotungu told her of Jesus and taught her bits of 
Scripture in the Eskimo dialect, "Because," she said, "I am a Christian, 
and Jesus wants us to be kind to the poor and friendless." 

The mind of the old woman seemed darkened and she could not 
grasp much at first, but light filtered in, as her last words proved. Just 
before her death she said to those about her: "Last night when I was 
lying here, it looked to me as if the top of the house opened and there 
was a bright light in which One appeared that I think was Jesus. So I 
said, 'Jesus save me now; Jesus save me now,' and I know he did. 
When I see him I will tell him how good and kind you have been to 
me." 



LI. THE CHRISTIAN GLADNESS. 



"Fear not; for behold 1 bring you good tidings of great Joy." — Luke 2:10. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. Henry C. Swentzel, rector of St. Luke's Church of Brook- 
lyn, N. Y., introduced a sermon on this text in these words: 

Christmas has charms all its own. It is the great high day in the 
world as well as in the Church. However things may go, it is a univer- 
sal fete day, the king of festivals. No burdens of care or grief, no ex- 
perience of disastrous fortune, no newly made graves, can wholly shut 
out its sunshine. Although "every heart knoweth its own bitterness," 
the birthday of Jesus comes whether men laugh or sob, not to mock, but 
to comfort and inspire. Only one cloud can obstruct its splendors, and 
that is the cloud of sin. 

Somehow the multitudes delight to turn toward the Bethlehem 
stable. Explain it as we will, the Christmas Baby is irresistible. He 
makes the heart sing. His holy feast is not the successor of the pagan 
Saturnalia, for heathen rioting is intolerable to the immaculateness of 
Christmas. The Christ-Child himself, makes the day, and, apart from 
him, its blessed minstrels cease. A last analysis will show that the mil- 
lions are happy because they say that Jesus was born on Christmas 
Day. It is because they so explain the day, and thus come in touch with 
the divine Christ, that one day in every year we have a Christmas world. 
Contact with the Lord always means happiness, and sooner or later the 
truth will be more generally recognized that no life can be normal and 
beautiful and Joyous and really strong unless it includes love and rever- 
ence for the Christmas Child. A phenomenal amount of religious power 
is not required In order to make the record and do the marvels of a 
Christian, for the promise is even to those who have the "faith as a 
grain of mustard seed." 

* * » 

Rev. S. Parkes Cadman, D.D., used this peroration: This Is good 
news, is it not? and we can fling it to every wind that blows, until De- 
cember's chill is made as pleasant as a teeming summer. Its anthems 
resound across the wintry lands and echo where the flowers bloom. 
ChriBt knows no East, no West, no North, no South, no caste and no 
prescribed ranks. In him we are one fellowship linked to the Brother 
whose gentle constraint woos the most unwilling. We gain today the 
meaning of the past, tho assured love of our Father and the union of 
our present life with life eternal. There are good grounds for honest 
merriment. Cottage and mansion, high and lowly, rich and poor, can 
Jubilate together. We can stop awhile and think of the children of the 
slum, of our own children, of the friends that love us, of the trlalB many 
have to bear. We can bury our dislikes and enmities and greet our foes 
as friends, and open our heart's door to let the Christ Child In. Greed 
and mammon can stand aside while we also hasten to Bethlehem and 
say of this auspicious hour: 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



"O! blessed day, which gives the eternal lie 
To self and sense and all the brute within; . 
O! come to us amid this war of life: 
To hall and hovel, come; to all who toil 
In senate, shop or study; and to those 
Who, sundered by the wastes of half a world, 
Ill-warned and sorely tempted, ever face 
Nature's brute powers and men unmanned to brutes- 
Come to them, blest and blessing, Christmas Day; 
Tell them once more the tale of Bethlehem — 
The kneeling shepherds and the Babe Divine, 
And keep them men indeed, fair Christmas Day." 
* * * 

Dr. Lyman Abbott's treatment of this Christmas theme followed this 
line of development: The scene is fresh in your minds after this Christ- 
mas season; shepherds watching their flocks, the angel appearing to 
them; their terror at this supernatural appearance, and this message: 
"Good tidings of great joy shall be to all people." 

When Jesus Christ came into the world, the religion of the then 
civilized world, the Roman Empire, was a religion of fear, which was 
based on the idea that the gods were powerful and dangerous, and that 
it was necessary to placate the wrath of these gods, or win their favor; 
and that was the general view of common people all around the globe. 
There might have been philosophers who held a different view, but that 
was the common opinion everywhere — worship or sacrifice, or penance, 
or pilgrimage, or payment, to win the favor of the gods. They were 
powerful gods; they were liable to be angry gods, and were dangerous 
gods. The gods are the ideals of the people. Religion was reverence 
for power Inspired by fear. Government was reverence for power in- 
spired by fear. The government of Rome was an absolute despotism. 
Men obeyed because the Emperor had power to compel obedience. Men 
feared the law, and that government was carried on for the benefit of 
the governor just as the government of the gods was for the benefit of 
the gods. The same spirit animated industry. Industry was a kind of 
grab game. It is somewhat so now, but it was so altogether, then. In- 
dustry was compelled by fear. 

Now, at that time, there appeared a man in one province of the 
Roman Empire who said: "That is a great mistake; it is radically 
wrong. Religion is not to be feared; the power of your government is 
not to be feared; the power of your industry is not to be feared. It Is 
something else, very different." Curiously enough, Jesus never said any- 
thing particularly about the power of God; he never said anything par- 
ticularly about the wisdom of God; but if he did it was incidental. What 
he laid stress on is this: Not that God has power and wisdom but that 
God is love. The Jews of the age had gathered their conception of God 
from the phenomena of nature. He said: "You fathers give good gifts 
to your children; believe that your Father in heaven will give good gifts 
to you. You forgive your children their trespasses; believe that your 
Father in heaven will forgive you your trespasses." We have turned 
the Lord's Prayer wrong end up. At a time when men did not believe 



THE CHRISTMAS GLADNESS 



253 



that God forgave at all unless his forgiveness were hought, Christ said: 
"That is not true: You fathers forgive, and so believe your Father for- 
gives you. Nothing is too little for him; nothing that interests you fails 
to interest him. Don't think you must purchase his forgiveness. You 
don't need to offer sacrifice." Christ never suggested that sacrifice must 
be offered. God is love. Not merely tender love, but love with a 
wonderful amount of faith and confidence in maa — strong love. 

* * * 

Christmas Gladness. 

The Christmas sunshine — the bursting forth of the heavenly Day- 
spring upon earth's darkness — means all this and vastly more. 

This is the deeper significance of the Christmas joy message. 

It means the bursting of the tides of heavenly gladness through the 
crust of earth. 

How thoroughly typical of this was the effulgence that illumined the 
sky near Bethlehem on that glad night of nights. And how sublime ia 
the word picture of it given by Luke. Recall his vivid words. 

How the light flowing from that Dayspring has penetrated the dark 
places of earth and illumined them with joy! How true it is that Christ 
came "to give light to them that sit in darkness!" 

That radiance shines upon lives steeped in guilt and the shadows 
of hopeless regret are scattered and penitent souls find Joy in pardon 
and hope replaces despair. 

That sunlight falls upon the dark places of earthly experience and 
even the valley of the Lhadow of death loses its power to arouse fear. 

Like a powerful searchlight it shines into the unfathomed future, 
and life and immortality are brought to light. 

Surely Christ's coming means, above all things else, eternal sun- 
shine for sin-darkened souls. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

The World's Sweetest Joy (380). 

In his human birth Jesus became a part of the world's sweetest and 
most primitive Joy — the Joy that awakens when it is said, "A child is 
born." Only brutalized or perverted natures do not feel that thrill. In 
the mansion in the great city, or in the lonely cabin out on the rim of 
the world, this joy is the same. Its springs lie far under all the con- 
ventions and accidents of life. Poverty and wealth have nothing to do 
with it. Bed of straw on manger floor, or queen's couch canopied with 
silk and gold, it is all the same. The blrthsong Is the note of the world's 
generic happiness, that, in human kind, Is one with the Joy of the bird 
that flutters and sings above her nestlings, and with that yet more 
primitive heart-quiver that runs through all lower life with the Bhootlng 
of a seed and the opening of a flower. And so Jesus entered the stream 
of human Joy not halfway down its course but at its fountain head. 
Evermore, since Bethlehem, young mothers will think of him when they 
first feel the soft touch of baby fingers on their breasts, and the strong 
man will think of him when, with deep Joy and pride, he first lifts up 
a little child and says, "This is my son." — John T. McFarland, D.D. 



254 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



The World's Need (381). 
The people need Christ. They have their share of sin, suffering, 
sorrow. They deeply need the grace, consolations, and strengthening 
of the Gospel. The people are capable of Christ. Without the intellect- 
ual distinction of the Magi, or the social eminence of Herod, they have 
the essential greatness of soul which renders them capable of Christ 
and of his greatest gifts. The people rejoice in Christ. "The shepherds 
returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had 
heard and seen." From that day to this a new glory has shone on all 
common scenes, a new joy has filled the common heart that has been 
opened to the Prince of Peace, the Saviour of the world. 

The Manger Child. 

I know not how that Bethleh'm's Babe 

Could in the Godhead be; 
I only know the manger-child 

Has brought God's life to me. 

— Harry Webb Farrington. 

"Christmas Gift" (382). 

In the old South we said "Christmas gift" on Christmas morning, 
instead of "Merry Christmas." And a present was claimed from you 
if another thus "caught your Christmas gift" before you caught his. 

"Christmas giff, daddy," called little Curly Locks. 

"Bless your heart, girlie dear. Daddy will give you a Christmas gift, 
something nice, too." Catching up the tiny pet, he rumpled her all up 
and made her rosy with the hug and kisses. He expected her to jump 
at him from behind the door and "catch her Christmas gift," and would 
have been disappointed if she had not. 

"Our Father" listens to hear every one of his children call "Christ- 
mas gift" to him. He prepared one for us from before the foundation 
of the world, and is disappointed if any of us do not claim It. And with 
the Christmas gift, his own Son, he will "freely give us all things," will 
throw in all things else that we need. Ask God this Christmas for "his 
Unspeakable Gift." 

"Christmas gift, ole masta," and the face under the red bandana 
was like a black full moon. "You knows I'se served you faithful all dis 
year. Ain't I, ole masta?" This was the way of the house servants, 
who were a privileged class. 

Of course she got the gift. Can we come, this gift day, with the 
same plea to our Master? "I've served you well all this year. A little 
extra gift to close the year." Can we say it? We are a privileged class 
to ask this. So gladly will he give to each one, with his salvation, wis- 
dom, patience, gentleness, power, hope, joy, love. He likes to throw in 
the extras. — Selected. 

The Joy of It (383). 
A man had a crusty and unsympathetic friend whom he was anxious 
to win to better feeling. To this man, whose inner nature had never yet 
been warmed by the glow and presence of Christ, the world seemed 
cold and matter-of-fact, with little room for the play of sympathy, and 
scant reason for sacrifice. When Chrismas came, his friend, a man of 



THE CHRISTMAS GLADXESS 



255 



larger vision, persuaded him to join with him in trying to make others 
happy with Christmas cheer. When the day was over, the crusty man 
was like another being. His heart was melted to tenderness, his soul 
had been touched with sympathy and with the transforming power of 
sacrifice. "Why," he said jubilantly, "there must have been a real joy 
for Christ in dying on the Cross!" — The American Messenger. 

What the Tidings Meant for Them (384). 

That evening, before sunset, some women were washing clothes on 
th« upper step of the flight that led down into the basin of the Pool of 
Siloam (under the walls of Jerusalem). 

"Peace to you," one of the new-comers said. 

"What news have you?" 

"Then you have not heard?" 

"They say the Christ is born." 

"Does anybody believe it?" 

"This afternoon three men came across Brook Cedron on the road 
from Shechem. Each one of them rode a camel spotless white, and 
larger than any ever before seen in Jerusalem." 

The eyes and mouths of the auditors opened wide. 

"To prove how great and rich the men were," the narrator continued, 
"they sat under awnings of silk; the buckles of their saddles were of 
gold, as was the fringe of their bridles; the bells were of silver, and 
made real music. Nobody knew them; they looked as if they had come 
from the ends of tbe world. Only one of them spoke, and of everybody 
on the road, even the women and children, he asked this question, 'Where 
is he that is born King of the Jews?' No one gave them answer — no 
one understood what they meant; so they passed on, leaving behind 
them this saying, 'For we have seen his star in the east, and are come 
to worship him.' " 

"Where are they now?" 

"At the khan. Hundreds have been to look at them already, and 
hundreds more are going." 
"Who are they?" 

"Nobody knows. They are said to be Persians — wise men who talk 
with the stars — prophets, it may be, like Elijah and Jeremiah." 
"What do they mean by King of the Jews?" 
"The ChrlBt, and that he is just born." 

One of the women laughed, and resumed her work, saying, "Well, 
when I see him I will believe." 

Another followed her example: "And I — well, when I see him raise 
the dead, I will believe." 

A third said quietly, "He has been a long time promised. It will be 
enough for me to see him heal one leper." 

And the party sat talking until the night came, and, with the help 
of the frosty air, drove them home. — Lew Wallace in Ben liur. 



LII. LIFE MUST VALIDATE PROFESSION. 



"Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I aay?" — Luke 
6:46. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

In preaching on this topic Rev. Dr. Wm. Bayard Craig summed up 
the teaching in these apt sentences: 

Keep my commands, abide in my love — obedience the condition of 
favor. Nature everywhere teaches and enforces this same law. 

All abiding art, all the triumphs of science and industry, bear wit- 
ness that success is attained only in strict conformity to Nature's com- 
mands. Then even the lightning will become a useful, peaceful partner. 

God in Christ, the incarnation of the divine love, wisdom, and power, 
woos the soul of man, offering forgiveness and seeking to secure in us 
a voluntary, loving obedience to the unchangeable truth of the universe — 
the commands of God. All blessings follow if we "abide in his love." 

There is no possible prosperity for the soul of man save in this obe- 
dience of faith. The abiding oneness of the Father and the Son, the glory 
of that loving communion, stands over against the perfected obedience 
of the Son of God. "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and 
to finish his work." 

"If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. William Hiram Foulkes, In a sermon on the embodiment of 
God's will In our life, said: 

It was ,t great day for the universe, and, I say it reverently, for God, 
when man lirst learned to say "I can." That is the "A" of the alphabet 
of omnipotence. That is the birth of liberty. The age-long process had 
silently said: "You must conform to me! Be a part of my passing 
panorama and perish!" Then came the issue of consciousness, "I can!" 
This is what kings are made of, and human history and destiny — of men 
"who can." Men said it to the forces of nature, to themselves, and to 
each other, and finally to the silent mysterious power that moved be- 
hind the earthly scenes. Then the law laid Its disciplinary hand upon 
youthful liberty and taught It that It had not outgrown law by learning 
to say "I can," but had only come Into a sphere of law all Its own. Im- 
mediately there followed the second letter in the alphabet of conscious- 
ness, "I ought." Here is where liberty attained full life. It is only 
when men subordinate their consciousness of power to their sense of 
obligation that they enter Into the real heritage of liberty. Finally came 
the climax of the process when man learned to say "I will." Liberty 
fulfills Its function and law Issues In perfection when man learns to say 
"I will" to the eternal order. Perfect liberty is only possible, then, when 
man can run the whole gamut of moral possibilities, saying to the God 
who made him, "I can live In a world of law and become a part of It 
and yet be conscious of myself as higher than the process." I "can," but 
I also "ought" "At length, having realized the end of my being In the 
law of God, I bring all the resources of my consciousness Into active 



258 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



participation in the great plan of God. By every choice and purpose of 
which I am capable, I will embody the order in my own life." 

In all of these affirmations of human liberty man has been meeting, 
on a familiar footing, the will of God. He has been portraying in epitome 
upon the tablets of his own soul the consciousness of God. The final 
perfection of the law ill liberty comes only when the will of God and 
the will of man become wedded in the bonds of an eternal covenant. 

* * * 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Jumping at the Chance to Obey (385). 
I went to that great Nashville convention, under painful, pitiful cir- 
cumstances. My college daughter was that week, we feared, near the 
end of her earthly life. She rallied and did last for a year or more 
after that. I said on Saturday night, "I do not see how I can go." She 
knew my engagement to go, and she called me to her and said: "Daddy, 
I will not slip away while you are gone. But there will be all those 
students at Nashville. You go down and tell them what they know, 
that any one of them who gets a chance to tell the story of Jesus Christ 
anywhere in the world ought to jump at it." — Bishop Thoburn. 

The Clew to Zeal is Love (386). 
"Cut a little deeper," said the French soldier under the surgeon's 
knife, "and you will find the image of the Emperor." That was the ex- 
planation of the triumph of the French army, and of the military glory 
which so intoxicated the French people. Where is the key to the mys- 
tical courage of Charles George Gordon at Khartoum, or James Chalmers 
offering himself a sacrifice to the cannibals of New Guinea, if it is not 
in the vision that never left their thoughts of the Christ whom they 
loved and whom they served, present with them, speaking to them, wait- 
ing for them even in the moment of the last surrender? — Stimson. 

General Booth's Answer (387). 
When J. Wilbur Chapman asked General Booth the secret of his 
success the veteran replied: "God has had all there was of me. . . . 
If there is anything of power in the Salvation Army today, it is because 
God has all the adoration of my heart, all the power of my will and all 
the influence of my life." 

Happiness by Doing (388). 

The highest happiness comes not by what we hear or see or feel- 
it comes by what we do. What shall it profit a man though he hear great 
music and read great books and have his soul stirred by the appeal of 
some prophet of the living God, unless as a result of it all he goes out 
and does something? If you hear and feel and see, happy are ye if ye 
do, and only then. "The criticism of the next generation upon this," 
some wise man has said, "will be, 'How plainly' they saw their prob- 
lems, how ineffective they were in solving them." Jacob Riis shows us 
"How the Other Half Lives," but thousands of the more fortunate de- 
cline the huge task of helping to change the hard lot of their unhappy 
fellows. Booker Washington in "Up from Slavery" shows us a vision 
of a backward race ennobled by training, but thousands of white men 



LIFE MUST VALIDATE PROFESSION 



259 



forget to lend a hand. John Spargo utters "The Cry of the Children," 
for there are two millions of them under sixteen years of age working 
at gainful occupations in our own land according to the government cen- 
sus, but the lack of resolute action to stop this physical, mental and 
moral depletion of the immature is disgraceful. Lincoln Steffens shows 
up "The Shame of the Cities" and it brings a blush to the face of many 
a patriot, but when the task of removing that shame begins to make 
demands upon the time and strength men are giving to their private 
business, there are many whose love for civic righteousness waxes cold. 
What are lessons and visions for but to be speedily translated Into 
deeds. — Congregationalist. 

The Overflowing Life (389). 
Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman in preaching upo»"The Second Mile," refers 
to the old Oriental rule which required one who met a traveler in a 
Btrange country, if called upon, to turn aside from his own journey and 
go with the stranger one mile to show him the way. To this the rule of 
Jesus has been added, "Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go 
with him twain." Dr. Chapman says: "It is this second-mile Chris- 
tianity which the world needs today, and second-mile living would compel 
weary pilgrims to turn their faces Christward. Christ is himself always 
the Inspiration and example of the second mile. The fact that you are 
a Christian may not of necessity prove that you have power. It is only 
when your life overflows that power is in your possession. The valley 
of the Nile Is a fruitful valley not because the Nile flows through it, 
but because the Nile overflows." — Selected. 

Obeying Orders (390). 

Posted up at the railroad stations and in the post offices are notices 
by the Government calling for young men to join the army. A young man 
is left to his own choice whether he will join the army or not, but once 
enlisted, he is no longer left to his own course. If Uncle Sam says for 
him to go to China or the Philippines, there he must go, and there is 
no alternative. If he declines to obey orders he Is dismissed from the 
service, and that, too, under disgrace. It is none the less true when we 
enlist under the Captain of our salvation, that we are on service and 
must obey orders. The order Is to go Into all the world and preach the 
gospel to every creature. William Duncan was once asked if he would 
go to the Indians of the great Northwest. He replied by saying he would 
go anywhere In the world where he was sent, and if need be he could 
be ready In an hour. 

All along our coasts are saving stations. Now and then a ship is 
dashed upon the rocks and many are In the perils of the deep. Just 
where it may happen no one can tell; but there Is a constant lookout 
from the shore for shipwrecked mariners, and wherever It may happen, 
there the rescuing party hastens, with all speed to render all possible 
assistance. Often this Is accompanied with great hardships and perils. 
But no man enlisted In the service thinks for a moment of drawing back 
because of these thlnga. Can a Christian do less?— J. M. McCaleb. 

Unquestioning Obedience (391). 
Epamlnondas was one of the leading generals of Greece. H1b success 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



brought him many opponents. This is an unfailing accompaniment of 
success. Those opponents elected him scavenger of his city in order to 
humiliate him. In accepting this position Epaminondas said: "If the 
work will not reflect glory on me, I will reflect glory on the work." There 
never was such a scavenger as Epaminondas. He dignified a despised 
calling. Greece never had another such example, and down to this day 
his name is mentioned with honor. — Selected. 

Failure In Fidelity (392). 
If we have failed in fidelity, manward or Godward, what then? Let 
the story of "the sifting of Peter" tell us. Such a grievous denial of 
his Master and Friend! Yet Jesus sought him out because he knew that 
Peter loved him, and because he loved Peter he probed his heart and 
said to him again, "Follow me." Thus 

"Noble souls, through dust and heat, 
Rise from disaster and defeat 

The stronger, 
And conscious still of the divine 
Within them, lie on earth supine 

No longer." — Selected. 

The Dedication of the Will (393). 
When we turn to the word of Jesus Christ, and to its translation in 
apostolic doctrine, we discover that neither thought nor feeling is laid 
at the foundation of religion. Christ had no quarrel with the human in- 
tellect. He recognized its wonder and its power. His own intellectual 
life was far too rich for him to be a traitor to the brain. Nor was Christ 
the enemy of human feeling. He never made light of tenderest emotion. 
He who wept beside the grave of Lazarus could never be the antagonist 
of tears. But in the teaching of Christ it is not thought or feeling that 
is the well-spring of personal religion. "My meat is to do the will of 
him that sent me;" the well-spring is in the region of the will. It is 
there that a man must pass from death to life. It is there that the path 
of piety begins — not in the loftiest and holiest thought, nor in the rapture 
of excited feeling. The first thing is the dedication of the will; the re- 
sponse of a free man to a great God ; the yielding of self to that imperious 
claim which is made by the loving Father in the heavens. "Seek ye 
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." — Rev. G. H. Morri- 
son, D.D. 

Volition Wedded to Faith (394). 
When Volition is wedded to Faith, Omnipotence will bless the banns. 
Here lies the secret of all strength. Apply it to whatever emergency or 
requirement, and it will never fail. Are you enslaved to some habit 
which Christ bids you put off? Look to him and make an effort at free- 
dom, and the bonds will be burst. Is a hard task imposed upon you, and 
do you feel inadequate to it? Trust in him and make the effort, and 
you will find that what is impossible with man is possible with God. — 
Bartlett. 



LIII. TRUTH-SEED 



"The seed Is the word of God."— Luke 8:11. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

I. God's Word is a portion of the food he has given to man to live 
by. It is the spiritual sustenance he has provided to support the spiritual 
part of us, the soul. For the soul, as well as the body, requires its fitting 
food. Both must be supported and nourished, if we would have them 
thrive. Does not all nature cry, from every part of the creation, that 
everything earthly must be fed? Fire must be fed, water must be fed, 
even the earth itself, which feeds all things, must be fed, else it will 
crumble into dust, or harden into a rock. So it is with the soul. That, 
too, as well as the body, must be fed with food suited to its nature. 
This is so plain that the heathen themselves knew it. They were fully 
aware that the soul would never thrive, unless it was nourished with 
food suitable to it; and to find that food was the great desire of the best 
and wisest men among them. Now if they did this, they who only knew 
that their spirits required food, from feeling them crave for it, what will 
God say to us, if we are less anxious about the nourishment of our 
souls? 

II. The Bible is not a charm, that, keeping It on our shelves 
or locking it up in a closet, can do us any good. Neither is it a story- 
book to read for amusement. It is sent to teach us our duty to God and 
man; to show us from what a height we are fallen by sin, and to what 
a far more glorious height we may soar, if we will put on the wings of 
faith and love. This is the use we ought to make of the Bible. If we 
UBe the Bible thus, Christ will open our eyes to see the way. He will 
Bend you wingB and they shall bear you up to heaven. For this must be 
borne in mind, that God alone giveth the increase. The only way of 
Insuring that our labor shall not be fruitless is by prayer; the only way 
of drawing down a blessing on our study is to ask for it. — A. W. Hare, 
D.D. 

• * * 

Rev. W. P. Patterson, D.D., gives the following summarizing of the 
influence exerted by God's Word in the world: 

I. It gives men the sense of a satisfactory relation to God. 

II. It has moulded a high type of character. 

III. It has prescribed a new mode of life and given power to live it. 

IV. It has called Into existence a Christian society which haB been 
the chief nursery of moral enthusiasm and eleemosynary organizations. 

V. It has evidenced assimilative power, and has drawn on the world 
"(as the seed in the soil)" for the Bupport and enrichment of lta life. 

VI. It has shown extraordinary persuasiveness, permeating every 
sphere of human activity. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
The Seed of Spiritual Growth (395). 
Dr. Arthur T. Plerson declared that more than thirty years of study 



262 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



of the Bible had wrought in him the solemn persuasion that the Word of 
God is the one book which it pays most richly to make the almost ex- 
clusive subject and object of searching study. 

"I have found," said he, "that my preaching and my living, my intel- 
lectual and spiritual life, my approximation toward both true holiness 
and true happiness, have been supremely influenced by the habit of daily 
and prayerfully searching the Scriptures. This one habit has proved the 
all-sufficient 'apologetics' to dissipate doubt, and the all-sufficient 'ener- 
getics' to put power into practical service. If called upon in one sentence 
to prescribe the antidote for all the worst ills to which the soul of man 
is exposed, I should promptly say that I knew of nothing so adapted to 
the great panacea as this: to cultivate the daily habit of prayerful com- 
munion with God through his inspired word." 

Dwight L. Moody and his Bible were inseparable. No man of his 
century did so much by example and teaching to revive Bible study as 
did he. He had a large, choice library. But the Bible was his one book. 
For a number of years he made it a rule not to read any 
book that did not help him to understand the Bible. He said 
he was "a greater slave to that book than any man is to strong 
drink." He believed, as he wrote on the title page of his Bible, "This 
book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book." 

Mr. Moody confidently declared that he had hop'e of the worst man, 
as long as he would read his Bible, feeling sure that he would turn to 
God some day. But, he said, "I am full of fear for the best man if he 
neglects his Bible. He is almost certain to fall before the enemy. Amid 
these last days' perils there is no safe-guard but in the word of God." 

We believe, as a certain writer declares, that "the most strategic 
thing a pastor can do is to persuade his congregation to read the Bible;" 
that "a Bible-reading Congregation is ready for every good word and 
work;" and that to enlist an entire community in Bible reading and 
Bible study "would be better than a revival." Indeed, that would be a 
revival ! — Selected. 

The Seed of Social Progress (396). 
When the Bible goes down the red flag goes up. Without the Ten 
Commandments and the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, you leave 
society at the mercy of a sea full of moral privateers. Statesmanship 
Is never so shortsighted as when it hedges against the Bible, one of 
whose constantly reiterated doctrines is respect for magistrates and ad- 
ministrative authority. And labor and industry are nothing else than 
purblind, when they tolerate indictments against that volume whose 
chief theme and inspiration are the life, the words and the deeds of 
Jesus the Carpenter. — Dr. Du Bose. 

Worth More Than All the Rest (397). 
When the missionary, Dr. Duff, first went to India he took with him 
a library of about 800 books. The ship in which he sailed became a 
complete wreck, while he was cast upon a small desolate island, all his 
books being lost. In the morning there appeared one book, which was 
washed upon the shore, and that was a large copy of the Bible. This 
one book practically constituted his outfit. 



TRUTH-SEED 



263 



The Bible In Demand (398). 
The Bible is still much more in demand than any other book. The 
Oxford Press turns out 20,000 Bibles in a week. More than 40,000 sheets 
of gold are used in lettering the volumes; 100,000 skins go into the Ox- 
ford Bible covers each year. The British and Foreign Bible Society 
prints the Bible in four hundred languages. During the first year of 
America's rule in the Philippines 10,700 Bibles were distributed there. 
Contrary to expectations since the Boxer insurrection in China, the 
Bible is in greatly increased demand. The issues of Bibles for China last 
year were 428,000 copies. The fact is, the Bible today is the most popu- 
lar book in the world, and more copies are sold than of any other hundred 
books combined. — Westminster Gazette. 

Sowing the Seed (399). 
Humanity in all parts of the world seems ready to receive this old 
book. Missionary versions of the Bible now number 476. The complete 
Bible is in 106 of these languages; translation into still other dialects is 
constantly going on. In 1910 the aggregate output of twenty-seven Bible 
societies was 12,843,196 copies of the Scripture. Since its organization in 
1804 the British and Foreign Bible Society has issued 220,000,000 Bibles, 
Testaments and separate Gospels, Psalters and other portions of the 
Bible. No other book in the world approaches the Bible as a "beat seller." 

The Vitality of the Seed (400). 

The Bible not only has power to awaken conscience; It likewise has 
power to vitalize. It requires life to communicate life. Emerson said of 
the words of Montaigne: "They are vascular. Cut them, and they will 
bleed." How much more truly may we say that of the writings which 
comprise the Bible. They are vascular, they vibrate with vitality. Cut 
them, and they will bleed. They are leaping out from life to life wher- 
ever they go among the nations. Wherever this river travels, there comes 
vitality. Take the literature of our day that comes with greatest help- 
fulness, and that seems to touch the sleeping conscience, it Is the liter- 
ature in which we find embodied the ideals and ideas of the Bible. Take 
the non-Christian religions, those sections of them which are manifesting 
renewed enterprise and activity. I make bold to say it is always where 
the Bible has been given the largest right of way. 

So it Is throughout Christendom. Those churches which are most 
formal and lifeless, and which, apparently, lack propagating power, are 
those which are the most ignorant of these writings. Here Is vitality: 
"Thou hast the words of eternal life." "My words are spirit, and they 
are life." 

The Bible has energizing power as well. Huxley said that the only 
true education Is that which enables a man to do what he knows he ought 
to do, at the time he ourM to do It, regardless of the consequences. I 
would emphasize that the Bible, as no other writing, communicates power, 
enabling men to take that difficult step which you and I are called on to 
take many times each day, tho Rtpp between knowing our duty and doing 
It. It Is at this point that the other religions so hopelessly break down 
according to their own confession. 

They tantalize their followers. I have talked with thousands of them, 



264 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



and I am in a position to know. What sinful men up and down this world 
want is not more teaching as to what they ought to do and be, in higher 
ideals and in fresh examples, but power which energizes the will to do its 
duty. For some reason which never fails to move men with awe, God 
has been pleased in all these years to communicate most largely his 
impulse and irresistible energy through these vital pages which we 
scatter at times, I think, so carelessly among the nations. — John R. Mott. 

A Drink From the Old Spring (401). 
One of the first operations performed in the city of Chicago for ap- 
pendicitis was performed on a young New Englander who was in Chi- 
cago on business. He was taken to one of the largest hospitals. This 
young fellow came from the State of Vermont, where the springs are 
abundant, and it is a beautiful thing, when you are thirsty, to get down 
on your knees and dip your face in the water of the spring. When the 
operation was over, and this young Vermonter was coming out from the 
anaesthetic, they saw his lips move, and the nurse, bending over heard 
him say, "Water." She said, "Doctor, may I give him a drink?" But 
when she brought it he would not take it, and they heard him whisper 
again, "I want a drink of water." The doctor bent over him and said, 
"Is it water you want? There is water right here." By this time the 
young fellow was beginning to gain consciousness, and as he looked up 
into the doctor's face with a smile, he said, "It is not this water that I 
want. I want a drink from the spring at my mother's door, back in 
Vermont." So in our deepest experiences of need, there is but one real 
satisfaction, one source of peace and hope, and that is God's Word. — 
Selected. 

The Seed of Liberty (402). 
What is producing the ferment in the East? Mr. Gladstone said that 
Robert College did more to solve the near East question than all the 
armies and diplomacy of Europe. Put the Bible in countries where 
tyranny and injustice have long held sway and the inevitable fruitage in 
God's good time will be liberty, democracy, justice and brotherhood. — 
Selected. 

The Seed of Civic Welfare (403). 
The more the Bible is put into the minds and hearts and daily lives 
of the people, the less concern we may have with respect to our political 
laws. Take out of our lives the Scriptures, and you would strike an irre- 
parable blow to our national progress, and to those high ideals which we 
associate with America and Americans. — Charles W. Fairbanks. 

Growth in Grace (404). 
The study of God's word will secure peace. Take those Christians 
who are rooted and grounded in the word of God, and you will find they 
have great peace. It is those who do not study their Bible who are 
easily offended when some little trouble comes, or some little persecu- 
tion. Just a little breath of opposition, and their peace is all gone. — 
D. L. Moody. 

Penitence and Peace (405). 
The reading of the Bible should always make us sorry, if we have 



TRUTH-SEED 



265 



not been living well. Many a person's heart has been broken by the 
searching words of Holy Scripture. A city missionary left a Bible in a 
godless home he was visiting. One evening the man of the house picked 
up the book and began to read it. Soon his face showed distress, and he 
said to his wife, "If this book is true we are living wrong." Evening 
after evening he continued to read it, and his anxiety deepened into sore 
anguish. "If this book is true," he said again, "we are lost." Next even- 
ing he read on further, and the Holy Spirit continued to work in his 
heart Lines of joy came into his face, and he said to his wife with glad- 
ness, "If this book is true, we may be saved." This Is the story of the 
way the reading of the Bible always works when it is not resisted. It 
convicts, then condemns, then leads to the Saviour. — Selected. 

The Power of the Word (406). 

A man was sitting on a pile of planks near the Quirinal in Rome. At 
his feet lay a large package. 

A couple of gendarmes, passing, noticed the bundle on the pavement. 
They stopped and asked what it contained, ever suspicious of infernal 
machines. 

"Dynamite!" said the man. 

The gendarmes Jumped. One of them gingerly seized the package, 
the other seized the man, and both were taken to the police headquarters. 

When the package was opened, it was found to contain — Bibles. 

"Where's the dynamite?" Inquired the gendarmes. 

"The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two- 
edged sword," replied the colporteur. 

He was right. The bundle contained dynamite. The word of God la 
dynamite. "Dynamic" is the exact Greek word that the sacred writer 
uses for "powerful." The Bible Is dynamic toward sin and all unrighteous- 
ness. — Christian Endeavor World. 

The Bible's Influence (407). 

The wonderful working of the living God through his word Is the 
mightiest single apologetic with which we are familiar. — John R. Mott. 

The spirit and words of the Bible walk abroad in all modern litera- 
ture to such an extent that readers cannot enjoy in an Intelligent fashion 
our authors of today unless they hear Moses and the Prophets. — Prof. 
William Lyon Phelps. 

How the Seed Grows (408). 
About the year 1820 a number of persons were found In a few vil- 
lages In India who had forsaken idolatry and who constantly refused to 
render to the Brahmans the customary honors. They were said to be 
remarkable for their truthfulness and correctness of conduct. It was said 
that they had derived all their principles from a book which was care- 
fully preserved In one of their villages. Some native Christians resolved 
to visit the sect of whom they had heard so many remarkable things. 
Tbe singular book from which their principles were derived was exhib- 
ited to the visitors. It was much worn, and was preserved In a case of 
metal resembling brass. On examination It was found to be a copy of 
the first edition of the Bengalee New Testament, printed at Rerampore In 
1800. This copy of a part of the sacred volume reformed twelve villages 
and opened the way for extensive missionary work— Jennie M. Bingham. 



LIV. COVETOUSNESS. 

"Take heed and beware of covetousness; for a man's life conslsteth not 
In the abundance of the things which he possesseth." — Luke 12:15. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

In a sermon on this text Rev. Frederick F. Shannon unfolded the 
thought along these lines: L False wealth, according to Christ, is rooted 
in covetousness: "Take heed, and keep yourselves from all covetous- 
ness." Here Is one of many of our Lord's examples of penetrative, noon- 
clear insight. He shows perfect mastery of a given situation while he 
states an ageless truth. It is probably within the facts to assume that 
the back-lying cause of this man's appeal to Christ was covetousness. 
Grant that the Justice of his demand was unquestionable, that his brother 
should have divided the inheritance with him. Yet having both right and 
Justice on one's side falls to curb the deep-seated, elemental passion for 
gain, the desperate eagerness for possession which kills the fine disposi- 
tion of the soul. Did Christ detect this as the source of the man's trou- 
ble? Did the Master see that back of the Justness, the Tightness of his 
cause, the man was himself held in the strong subtle grasp of avarice? 
It may have been. For covetousness is not a thing of caste; not a mat- 
ter of class distinction. The man in the pulpit may be Just as covetous 
as the man in Wall Street. He may not have the same opportunity for 
exhibiting his covetousness, but the principle may be there Just the same. 

II. Moreover, false wealth is invariably victimized by things. "A man's 
life consiBteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." 
The rich fool is an example of the man who has become the slave of 
things. How unmistakably his own words reveal his inner decay! Hear 
him boast of "my barns," "my grain," "my goods!" He himself is sub- 
merged in the muck and the mire of materialism. And things take their 
terrible vengeance upon him, as they always do. When Midas asked for 
the golden touch, it was granted. Everything went golden — the milk on 
the table, the flowers in the garden, even his little daughter stiffened into 
a statue of gold. Then MldaB became wise enough to pray that the 
golden touch be taken away from him. Does not the myth illustrate in a 
large way the utter futility of mere things? But it does more; it shows 
the reactionary, deadening power of things upon character. Men must 
master possessions or possessions will master men. The glitter of things 
exerts a more than hypnotic power over the dupes of avarice. "There is 
nothing on earth," says the Wall Street Journal, "that looks good that Is so 
dangerous for a man or a nation to handle as quick, easy, big money. If 
you do not resist its deadly Influence, the chances are that It will get 
your son. It takes greater and finer heroism to dare to be poor in 
America than to charge earthworks In Manchuria." This, also, was at 
once the warning and the ploa of the late William James. Recognizing 
the dreadful onslaught which a mad desire for comfort and luxury is 
making upon the modern world, he thought It was time for men to take 
again the vows of poverty, like Francis of Assisi. Only the grace of God 
can save many men from the grasp of gold. 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



III. Contrasted with false wealth, Christ has forever set before man 
the wealth that is true: So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is 
not rich toward God." How grandly does the Master brush away the 
shadow and lay bare the substance! The man who goes through the 
world "himselflng," who cannot see beyond the circle of his own narrow, 
selfish interests, is foolish and poor; but the man who purposefully in- 
vokes the presence and guidance of God in his life, is wise and rich. He 
definitely sets himself at such a spiritual angle as to be usable. The smit- 
ing wonder of the Christian God is that he asks human co-operation. He 
challenges each soul to make the venture into the realms of abiding 
reality. Christianity is the interspersing of the finite with the infinite. 
Our definition, then, of true wealth is this: True wealth is Godlikeness. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. William J. Harsha made this comment on the text: Here 
we have a solemn command evoked by a striking incident and backed up 
by a pertinent reason. The command itself is cumulative in form. "Take 
heed and beware." If we carefully consider what covetousness is in its 
nature and tendencies, we will diligently avoid it. "Take heed." Meditate 
upon the tenth commandment as well as repeat it; revolve in mind how 
discontent with our lot dishonors God, how envy of the apparent happi- 
ness of others destroys brotherly sympathy, how covetousness kills gen- 
erosity, stifles good impulses, and stands in the way of that charity which 
"suffereth long and is kind" because it "envieth not." And having taken 
heed, "beware!" Set a watch on every thought and motive that tends 
toward envy. Be strict with yourself and generous with others. Covet- 
ousness creeps in unnoticed, and you will be startled to find it appear- 
ing in heart and life. Hence the need of being "wary," vigilant. 

The incident out of which this command grew is very striking. The 
dividing of inheritances has been in all the ages a fruitful source of 
covetousness. Envy is "as rottenness in the bones." How soon envy 
entered into the world! The first sin was Adam's pride; and the second, 
perhaps, was Cain's envy. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
The Root of Evil (409). 

How "many kinds of evil" have been rooted in "the love of money" 
in all countries and in all centuries! By covetousness more than by per- 
verted conscience the persecutions of the Jews have been caused in all 
ages. Greed in American whalemen, aided by lust, has almost depopu- 
lated the Sandwich Islands — Christianity coming too late to do more than 
delay the result. Greed in the Portuguese traders aided by Romanism, 
caused the banishment of Christianity for two centuries from Japan. 
Greed in English merchants carried the opium curse into China. Greed'B 
injustice and trickery have provoked most of our Indian wars. Greed has 
corrupted our national politics. 

"Mr. A. has just died worth ten millions." When he meets God he 
will have two hard questions to answer: First, How did you get that 
money? second, What did you do with it? 

That man is a failure who has gained wealth by the sacrifice of 
greater things. It is not success to give two millions for one, nor to ex- 
change character for cash. — Selected. 



COVETOUSNESS 



269 



Riches and Wings (409a). 

When some one remarked in his hearing that "riches take wings," it 
was Mr. Dooiey who sagely replied: "Riches niver took wings from 
anybody that was entitled to wear wings." The oddly construed state- 
ment holds a truth that we oftentimes overlook in our estimate of the 
dangers of wealth. 

Prosperity, we say, often makes a man selfish, proud, narrow; he 
values material possessions above everything else and grows avaricious 
in his eagerness to win and hold to them. He sacrifices higher things 
and grows hard of heart and small of soul. But in reality there is noth- 
ing in wealth itself to create these traits; it only develops and reveals 
what the nature holds. The ability to get wealth, to see how and where 
to turn the resources at hand to financial profit, is as much a God-given 
talent as is art, oratory or music. It may be debased or misused, as may 
be the others; but it holds in it intrinsically no more of evil. There are 
many who fancy themselves full of kindness and generosity, only wait- 
ing for means and opportunity to do great things, who fail to carry out 
their plans when the longed-for opportunity comes; but that is not be- 
cause wealth changes them. Whoever is sincerely unselfish and a lover 
of his kind will be doing day by day what he can now with what he has 
now; and whoever is cultivating that habit in his life will not be sudden- 
ly transformed Into selfishness by the coming of greater wealth. 

Riches may "take to themselves wingB and fly away," but neither 
their coming nor going will ruin the man whose life holds other things 
higher.— Kind Words. 

Conquering Covetousness (410). 

How can we ever wield Christian Influence enough to change such 
world-wide deeply-entrenched conditions? Individually you never can. But 
there la something you can do. You can refuse to throw your manhood. 
Its thought and volition, its honor and Integrity, into the fire of worldly 
enterprise that the golden calf of wealth result. Material wealth is del- 
fled nowhere more universally than In America. Immortal souls are 
degrading themselves to its service. Manhood Is being commercialized 
Instead of Christianized. We kneel at the altar of the golden calf rather 
than at the altar of Christian service. 

And our young men and maidens can abstain from flinging their 
health and beauty Into that same fire of worldly enterprise for such 
■hocking results as reaping In termB of sensuousness, Intemperance, dis- 
sipation, selfish indulgence, foolish extravagance. Were the forbidden 
pleasures ever running riot with our youth more recklessly than today? 
And wherever human affections are singed by worldly enterprise and com- 
mercialized Into unholy marriages, with money and social standing the 
Incentives, there you have that automatic golden calf polluting the mar- 
riage altar. 

These are some of the tendencies In our peculiar modern civilization 
that we can guard against. But to do so our Christian faith must be a 
vital possession. We must experience It for ourselves. It must be deep- 
ened and broadened In the wilderness rather than In the tabernacle, out 
midst the stress and strife of the circumstances that stamp us weaklings 
or heroes. — Robert MacDonald, D.D. 



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The One Hundred and Twentieth (411). 

In the midst of an age of plenty, even luxury and wealth, God ia 
made a beggar. Though the wealth of Christians in the United States is 
estimated at $8,000,000,000, in the year 1910 they gave to the spreading 
of the gospel among those who have never heard of it onlly one-twelfth 
of a tithe of the savings. In other words, after all necessary expenses 
had been paid and luxuries provided, out of what they were ready to 
deposit in the bank they gave one one-hundredth-and-twentieth part What 
does God think of us? — Missions. 

Thou Fool (412). 

"Whoso hath the world's goods and beholdeth his brother in need, 
and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God 
abide in him?" Charity was solicited from a rich man as a loan to the 
Lord. He replied, "The security, no doubt, is good, and the interest lib- 
eral; but I cannot give such long credit." Within two weeks he heard 
the summons, "Thou fool ! this night thy soul shall be required of thee." — 
Selected. 

A National Menace (413). 

We need to clean the country of the filth of graft and of greed, petty 
and big; of worship of fine houses, and big lands, and high office, and 
grand social functions. What is this thing which we are worshipping 
but a vain repetition of what decayed nations fell down and worshipped 
just before their light went out? 

Great wealth never made a nation substantial or honorable. There is 
nothing on earth that looks good that is so dangerous for a man or a 
nation to handle as quick, easy, big money. If you do resist its deadly 
Influence the chances are that it will get your son. It takes greater and 
finer heroism to dare to be poor in America than to charge an earth- 
works in Manchuria. — Wall Street Journal. 

Glad Giving (414). 

A Methodist minister says that in one of his charges a good man reg- 
ularly gave every Sabbath five dollars for the support of the church. A 
poor widow was also a member of the same church, who supported her- 
self and six children by washing. She was as regular as the rich man in 
making her offering of five cents per week, which was all she could spare 
from her scant earnings. One day the rich man came to the minister and 
said the poor woman ought not to pay anything, and that he would pay 
the five cents for her every week. The pastor called to tell her of the 
offer, which he did in a considerate manner. Tears came to the woman's 
eyes as she replied: "Do they want to take from me the comfort I ex- 
perience in giving to the Lord? Think how much I owe to him. My 
health is good, my children keep well, and I receive so many blessings 
that I feel I could not live if I did not make my little offering to Jesus 
each week." 



COVETOUSNESS 



271 



The Philanthropist (415). 
I reckon him greater than any man 

That ever drew sword In war; 
I reckon him nobler than king or khan, 
Braver and better by far. 

And wisest he in this whole wide land 

Of hoarding till bent and gray; 
For all you can hold in your cold dead hand 

Is what you have given away. 

— Joaquin Miller. 

Life's Real Values (416). 
There are no such things as absolute values. Values depend upon 
the desires of men. A book has no value to the man who is not inter- 
ested In the great meanings of life while a yacht or a motor car is 
necessary to happy existence. A Rubens has no value to a man who en- 
Joys the pictures of the Sunday supplements. So while we talk about the 
supreme values of spiritual possessions, before they can have meaning 
there must be a kindling of new desires and appreciations and an enlight- 
enment which can only come through a spiritual awakening, as the mean- 
ing of life came to Parsifal only after his enlightenment through pity. 
The great task of the church is to begin to train its children at earliest 
age to love the finest things. Above all, we must awaken in men by 
religious experience their spiritual nature. Then the awakened soul will 
turn naturally to the things of the spirit — which are the real things of 
Worth. Read the chapters on conversion in Professor James's "Varieties 
of Religious Experience," and see how the whole scale of values shifted 
Immediately upon conversion. — Lynch. 

How Wealth Rots the Fibre of Character (417). 

The 111 effects of wealth upon character are marked. One evil ap- 
pears the almost Inevitable concomitant of wealth. This is the develop- 
ment of self-indulgence and selfish luxury. Many live simply, however, 
even penurlously, because of greed; so overpowered are they by the 
passion of money that they are unwilling to spend much upon them- 
selves. If such people are excepted, the wealthy who live simply and do 
not surround themselves with luxury are comparatively few in number. 
Selfish luxury Is undoubtedly the prevailing sin of wealth, and from It 
often spring effeminacy, a pampered appetite, not seldom fast living and 
sensuality. These are among the results of wealth. 

Even those of large means who give very largely to charities or 
philanthropies rarely do so at the cost of any sacrifice of luxury to them 
selves. Conscience upon this subject among this class seems almost 
atrophied, and persons living In extreme luxury will often, with seeming 
honesty, consider themselves unable to contribute to causeB which they 
acknowledge to be most meritorious and Important 

Another 111 effect of wealth Is the temptation to exalt material pos- 
sessions over character, and to a less extent over Intellectual and spir- 
itual attainments. Wealth procures for Its possessor so many opportu- 
nities, enjoyments, privileges, often so much power, that the large ma- 



27a 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



jority of the wealthy are tempted to consider the possession of riches 
the most important thing in life, the ruling consideration in matters of 
business, of marriage, of social friendship, too often the chief standard 
in the valuation of men. 

Akin to the above is the temptation to gain power — commercial, finan- 
cial, political, social or otherwise — by methods frequently subversive of 
the higher dictates of justice and fair dealing, and not seldom contrary 
even to common honesty, morality, and decent living. — Josiah Strong, D.D. 

Greed (418). 

One day Lincoln was walking along a street in Springfield with his 
two boys, who were yelling lustily. Attracted by the cries of the lads, a 
neighbor came out and asked: "Why, what's the matter with the boys, 
Mr. Lincoln?" "Just what's the matter with the whole world," replied 
Lincoln. "I have three walnuts and each boy wants two." How this goes 
to the root of the social problem in every age! — Selected. 



LV. PARDON FOR THE PENITENT. 



"But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had com- 
passion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." — Luke 15:20. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. George F. Pentecost, D.D., said: We cannot buy God's grace. 
We muBt believe what God has told us concerning his grace, accept it, 
and enter into the joy of it. Paul tells us that "it is of faith that it might 
be by grace." (Rom. iv. 16). 

One day a poor girl ventured into the garden of the Queen's palace 
at Balmoral, and approached the gardener, telling him that her mother 
was lying very ill, and that she longed for a flower, such as she had seen 
in the Queen's gardens.. It was winter-time, and the flowers were rare 
at that season. The child had saved a few pennies and wished to buy 
a rose for her sick mother. The gardener had no authority to give away 
the Queen's flowers, and he said when she offered to pay, "The Queen 
has no flowers for sale," and would have sent the poor child away. It 
chanced that the Queen herself was in the greenhouse, and, unobserved 
either by the gardener or his little customer, had overheard the con- 
versation. Ab the child was turning away sorrowful and disappointed, 
the Queen stepped from behind her flowery screen and addressed the 
child, saying, "The gardener was quite right, my child, he has no 
authority to give yY>u the flowers you want, nor does the Queen cultivate 
flowers for sale; but the Queen has flowers to give away;" and suiting 
the action to the word, she lifted from the basket Into which she had 
been snipping the flowers a handful of rare roses and gave them to the 
child, saying, "Take these to your mother with my love, and tell her that 
the Queen sent them. I am the Queen." So let me say to you, God ha» 
no forgiveness for Bale; you cannot buy it with your poor pence of 
tears, prayers, or repentance; God has forgiveness to give, and you may 
take it by faith, but not barter for it with anything you can do. 

* * * 

Most wonderful of all are the overtures of love. "Who is thiB that 
cometh from Edom, with garments red from the wine press?" "I am he 
mighty to — " what? Dig mantraps for the unwary feet of the trans- 
gressor? "I am he mighty to — " what? Hurl redhot thunderbolts hurtling 
along the pathway of the sinner? No. "I am he mighty to — " what? To 
track the sinner down, and thrust him into the flames of wrath, heated 
thrice hot? "I am he that Is mighty — to save." Between the Justice of 
God and the sinful soul, stands the mercy of God. Between the terrors 
of memory and the prodigal stands the love of God. There is one way 
to escape from God's Justice and that is to flee to God's mercy. The 
Divine Father Is always abroad by day and by night upon hla mission 
of recovery. In that beautiful story by the Canadian writer you remem- 
ber that when the young scholar died, and came to the gates of Para- 
dise, he found a group of beautiful mothers waiting at the gate. Just 
beyond was the summerland, where the Bonn of God were singing for 
Joy. When the scholar asked these mothers why they did not go through 



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the gates into Eden, with its sweet delights, one said wistfully, that she 
was waiting for her boy to come home, that hand in hand with him she 
might go up the hills of God, and plead the cause of her erring son. But 
that which a brilliant author dreamed, Christ did and was. For in that 
hour when each man gives his account unto God, and is not able to lift hp 
so much as his head, but must smite upon his breast and say, "God be 
merciful to me a sinner," in that hour Christ will plead man's cause 
before the court of High Heaven. — Hillis. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
A Modern Prodigal Pardoned (419). 

"I am just out of State's prison!" 

Dr. Goodell was in the midst of a revival service when a man stood 
up in the aisle and shouted these words at him in a voice that was 
harsh with excitement. The preacher paused; the audience sat breath- 
less, every glance turned upon the man in the aisle. His head was bent 
forward. The muscles of his face were set. His eye rested steadily 
apon the face of the minister. After a tense moment he went on: 

"I am just out of State's prison. I was guilty of all that was charged 
and of things which were never found out. You have been saying things 
here which are tremendously true or terribly false. You have been talk- 
ing about some One who could save people from their sins. You said it 
made no difference how wicked a man had been if he repented; that his 
sins would be blotted out. You said he would know fye was forgiven and 
the sense of condemnation and guilt would be gone. Now, if you are 
saying what you do not know to be true, you ought to be ashamed. If 
you are holding out to a man like me a hope when there is no hope, you 
ought to stop it. 

"I want to know, sir, whether you believe that this religion you are 
preaching can save a man like me. You said that Jesus saved a thief 
on the cross. Do you believe that Jesus can save a thief now?" The 
man's chin quivered and his eyes swam as again his voice died away. 
The entire audience was moved. Dr. Goodell confesses that he felt 
stirred, but he felt also his faith rise at the challenge. He reached 
across the chancel rail and took the appealing, outstretched hand in his, 
saying, in a voice for all to hear: 

"My brother, I have honestly declared a message in which I believe. 
I cannot afford to preach a Gospel that is not true, and I will not. I am 
ready to make this contract with you. If you will meet the conditions 
which are laid down in the Bible, by which a man may come to God, and 
you do not find salvation, I will never again go into this pulpit to 
preach!" 

Something like a gasp went over the audience as they realized the 
significance of the issues thus joined. The two men knelt together at 
the altar. There was an earnest exposition of the way of life by the 
pastor with the open Bible before him, with eager, earnest listening by 
the man. Thereafter the minister prayed fervently, and the seeker him- 
self uttered a few broken sentences, and the congregation was dismissed 
in suppressed excitement. The service of the following night had been 
announced, but with the stipulation that Dr. Goodell would not preach 



PARDON FOR THE PENITENT 



275 



except upon the condition which all now understood. He did not sleep 
much that night, and the next day was a restless one for him. Some 
of his parishioners thought he had been too rash and came to tell him 
bo. Night came, and the hour for service. Dr. Goodell was at the church, 
but did not enter the pulpit. Instead he sat just outside the chancel rail 
with his eyes upon the door. Would the man come? Would he come a 
conqueror or a miserable failure, confessing defeat? The time to preach 
arrived, but the man did not Another hymn was announced and the 
congregation sang: 

"There is a fountain filled with blood," etc. 

As the last note died ha6ty steps were heard in the veBtlbule, then 
the doors swung and a man — the man — with hair disheveled and his 
features dripping perspiration, rushed down the aisle. 

"The car broke down," he exclaimed, breathlessly, 'Taut — " and hlB 
voice rose in hoarse notes of triumph — "you can go ahead and preach." — 
Collier's. 

Father and Son Reconciled (420). 

There was an Englishman who had an only son, who was very head- 
strong, and often he and his father quarrelled. Both were very angry; 
the father said he wished the boy would leave home and never come 
back. The boy said he would go, and would not come into his father's 
house again till he Bent for him. The father said he would never send 
for him. Away went the boy. His mother began to write, and plead 
with the boy to write to his father first, and he would forgive him; but 
the boy said: "I will never go home till father asks me." Then she pled 
with the father, but the father said, "No, I will never ask him." At last 
the mother, broken-hearted, was given up by the physicians to die, and 
the husband wanted to know if there was nothing he could do for her 
before she died. The mother said, "Yes, there is one thing you can do. 
You can send for my boy. That is the only wish on earth you can grat- 
ify. If you do not pity him and love him when I am dead and gone, who 
will?" "Well," said the father, "I will send word to him that you want 
to see him." "No," she says, "you know he will not come for me. If 
ever I see him you must send for him." At last the father wrote a 
despatch in his own name, asking the boy to come home. As soon as he 
got the Invitation from his father he came to see his dying mother. When 
he opened the door he found his mother dying, and his father by the bed- 
side. The father heard the door open, and went to another part of the 
room, and refused to speak to him. His mother kissed him, and said, 
"Now, my son. Just speak to your father. You speak first, and it will all 
be over." But tho boy said, "No, mother, I will not speak to him until 
he speaks to me." She took her husband's hand In one hand and the 
boy's in the other, and spent her dying moments in trying to bring about 
a reconciliation. Then Just as she was expiring — she could not speak — 
■o she put the hand of tho wayward boy Into the hand of the father, and 
passed away! Then the fathrr'B heart broke, and ho opened his arms, 
and took that boy to his bosom, and by that body they were reconciled. 
Sinner, that Is only a faint type, a poor illustration, because Ood Is not 
angry with you. — Moody. 



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A Japanese Prodigal (421). 

A young Japanese hated the Bible, and read it that he might know 
how to attack it; but as he read he saw himself to be a sinner, and Jesus 
to be the Saviour he needed. He gave his heart to Christ, returned to his 
native village, and fearlessly began to speak of his new-found peace and 
joy. But one of his old school friends became bitterly angry; he and 
others came to him and said, "Give up this hateful thing, or leave our 
college." "I will go," he said, "but first let me tell you what it is I now 
believe." He took his Bible in his hand, and that night he told all the 
village folk what he had discovered in it of the love of God in Christ. 
Night after night he went on, till he had gathered enough inquirers to 
start a Sabbath school. But this former friend got angrier still, and was 
filled with hatred against Christ. Some time later, this heathen young 
man was drafted into the Japanese army and sent to Manchuria. By and 
by the time came for him to return to Japan. Shortly before they went 
home, he and his companions looted a Chinese house and carried off all 
the valuables that were there. The heathen soldier brought away a 
splendid inscribed scroll. "When he re-entered his native village, there 
was a feast held in his honor. Very proudly he held up the trophy, and 
praised the beautiful motto written on it. His old friend was present, 
and heard the words read out. "But these are not the words of a Chinese 
sage," he cried out; "they are taken from the 'Jesus Book' that you 
despise and hate." The heathen soldier was struck dumb with astonish- 
ment. He came to his friend and said: "I surrender, I surrender; that 
God of yours and that Book of yours find me out wherever I go. Now I 
will try to know them." He has become an earnest reader of God's 
Word, and is now seeking to be baptized and to live for Jesus. — Selected. 

What True Repentance Is (422). 

Repentance is not conviction; you can be convicted without repent- 
ance. It is one thing to be called at five o'clock in the morning, and an- 
other thing to get up. It is one thing to be awake, and another thing 
to rise. It is one thing to see your duty and another thing 
to face it and do it like a man. It is one thing to have 
light, and another thing to have life. God took the trouble to awaken 
you, to convince you, and had you submitted, had you paid attention, you 
would have been a Christian. But you resisted, you fought against it; you 
said "No;" you rolled over and went to sleep again. 

Listen! In Bible language repentance is turning from sin 
to God. That is repentance — "from," "to." It is putting your 
hand on your heart and getting hold of the thing that has been your 
curse and dragging it out, and saying: "There, Lord Jesus, that is it, 
and I will die before I will commit it again. I will turn from It now and 
forever." That is repentance. — Gypsy Smith. 



LVI. CHRIST'S CONQUEST OF DEATH. 



"He Is not here, but is risen/' — Luke 24:6. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

We should emphasize Christ's resurrection, says Rev. E. H. Knight, 
D.D., in a sermon: 

L Because the resurrection of Christ is the best proof of the truth 
of Christianity. L Proof demanded by Hindu, Chinese, Mohammedan, or 
doubter in Christian lands. 2. Proof furnished in the resurrection, one 
of the most distinguishing features of Christianity. 

II. Because It is the central fact in the Christian system. 1. Im- 
portance of other facts. 2. Resurrection of Christ central. Compare the 
fiun in solar system. 3. What if it were not true? Our preaching vain; 
your faith vain; no joy, no hope; sin and death. If no Bun, no solar 
system. 4. But it is true. 

III. Because it is a token of the supremacy of good over evil. 1. 
The conflict between good and evil everywhere. 2. Culmination of the 
conflict in Christ's death. 3. In Christ's resurrection the good triumphed. 

IV. Because it is the pledge of the resurrection of the hellever in 
Christ. 1. Would heaven be the best heaven without our bodies? 2. 
Pledge of our having them in Christ's having his. In each case a glori- 
fied body. This the final victory for us over sin and death. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. S. Parkes Cadman introduced an Easter sermon with these 
words: This is Easter Day, when we behold the miracle of life moving 
forward to something more rich and wonderful In the futurity which 
awaits its development. Easter Day, when the earth around us is 
vibrant with renewed vitality. The roots beneath the sod, the bottoms 
of the streams, the greening mantle of the trees speak of another venture, 
where death is clothed upon once more. The mysterious stir in the land- 
scape has a hundred meanings for observant minds. Plants and flowers 
tunnel their way to freedom, and climb out Into sunny spaces in search 
of air and light The sluggish carcasses which have been tied to the 
clay revive again, come forth and shine resplendent. For Nature haB her 
graves and they, too, arc in her gardens. From them the myriads of her 
dead arise, each one as a torch along our path to the empty grave in the 
Garden of Joseph. Upon the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from 
the dead, depends a regeneration of human life to which nothing In 
ordinary experience can respond. The change wrought In men and women 
Is the standing wonder of Christian energy and faith. At this very place, 
and In this literature, two worlds divide, the old one and the new. Beyond 
■peculation or opinion, It Is a majestic fact that all which Is characteristic 
of modem civilization, of Its most elevated social conditions, and of the 
hopes which sustain and encourage society at this hour arose with Christ 
at Jerusalem. 

• • • 

Rev. Dr. Charles Carroll AlbertBon used the following words as an 



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Easter sermon peroration: Jesus was a conqueror in the world about 
him. The people by whom he was surrounded were narrow; he was 
broad. They were bigoted; he was tolerant. They were prejudiced; he 
was impartial. Race prejudice, class prejudice, sex prejudice, he ignored. 
The superficial philosophy of his day he contradicted. The shallow re- 
ligionism of his day he condemned. 

With the world of desire within him conquered, and the world of 
error around him conquered, what else is there to conquer? There is but 
one foe left to challenge him. Sin is slain and error is slain, but Death 
Is yet the universal slayer. At last Death levels his lance at Jesus. The 
great heart bleeds and breaks, and darkness falls, and all the choiring 
hosts of heaven are dumb, for the Conqueror is conquered, and the Victor 
is vanquished. But wait! The long road has a turning. The long night 
ends. The day breaks bright over the hills, and birds are singing in 
Joseph's garden. The women come with spices. An angel sits beside 
the tomb. Jesus is not here. The grave clothes are folded. (He was in 
no haste to leave the tomb.) What means this empty grave? It means 
the last enemy has been destroyed. It means death has been abolished. 
It means that your grave and mine, and the graves of our dear dead, 
shall be empty some time. The light of his life is our guide through the 
gloom. Death is conquered. All is conquered. The world has nothing 
more to overcome. And listen! He speaks; "Be of good cheer." What 
has his victory to do with ours? Everything. He shows us how to con- 
quer. He helps us to conquer. And there is a sense in which, when he 
conquered death, we conquered, for he was our representative, as well 
as our pathfinder. Whether we overcome the world and death depends 
upon our attitude to him. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
What E«ster Means (424). 

Easter means for you and me a life above the world of sin, a life 
transformed and made lovely. I went one day to a spot where I used 
to camp when a boy. I dug up an old root from close to where my head 
used to be, with my fingers, and took it home to my wife and said: 
"Annie, look at what I have got." She said: "Look at your fingers, look 
/ at the dirt! " And I said : "I want you to come and see where I plant 
1 this, and I want you to watch it for me." Some time after, when I re- 
' turned home from one of our missions, one of the first things my wife 
said to me was: "You know that dirty old root you planted?" "Yes," I 
said. "Well," she went on, "there's the most lovely bunch of primroses 
there you ever saw." The primroses were all in the old, dirty root. And 
there are roses and primroses and daffodils and lilies-of-the-valley — splen- 
dors magnificent — in you and me if we will only let God have his way 
with us. Easter means that for you and me. — Gypsy Smith. 

Immortality (425). 
Someone told a man on a great ocean liner of the wonderful piece 
of mechanism in the engine room, and he started down the companion- 
way one day during his voyage to see it. Halfway down he saw a bundla 
of squalid rags lying, which on a closer glance proved to be a little sleep- 
ing Italian immigrant child who had wandered away from the steerage. 



CHRIST'S CONQUEST OF DEATH 



279 



He was a man of refined instincts, and he spurned the bundle of squalor 
with his boot as he passed. And then he halted, and said to himself, 
"What am I doing! I am on my way down to see an engine which in a 
few years from now will be a discarded mass of scrap on some junk pile, 
and I am spurning an immortal soul which ten million years from now 
will still be living, for weal or woe!" And he retraced his steps and 
gathered up the grimy little sleeper in his arms and said, "God forgive 
me! I will never again fail to realize the infinite value of an immortal 

BOUl." 

A Glad Hope (426). 
I visited a band of pagan Indians in the far north, and found them 
utterly unresponsive to Gospel truth until I shouted out, "I know where 
all your children are, — all your dead children." They quickly manifested 
Intense interest, I went on: "They have gone from your wigwams and 
your campfire8. Your hearts are sad and you mourn for the children you 
hear not. But there is only one way to the beautiful land, where the 
Son of God has gone, and into which he takes the children, and you must 
come this way if you would be happy and enter in." As I spoke a stal- 
wart Indian sprang up and rushed towards me. "Missionary, my heart is 
empty and 1 mourn much, for none of my children are left among the 
living; very lonely is my wigwam, I long to see them again and clasp 
them in my arms. Tell me, what must I do to enter that beautiful land, 
and see my children?" And others quickly followed him seeking for 
Instruction. — Dr. Egerton Young. 

The Dead Are the Living (427). 
No one ever stated this blessed truth more clearly than did Dr. 
Alexander Maclaren in his memorable words: "The dead are the living. 
Every man that has died is at this instant In full possession of all his 
faculties, in the intensest exercise of ell his capacities, standing some- 
where in God's universe, ringed by a sense of God's presence, and feeling 
In every fibre of his being that life, which comeB after death, is not less 
real, but more real, not less great, but more great, not less full or in- 
tense, but more full and Intense, than the mingled life, which, lived here 
on earth, was a center of life surrounded with a crust and circumfer- 
ence of Immortality. The dead are living. They lived while they died; 
and after they die, they live on forever." 

The World's Hope (428). 
Bishop McDowell speaking of his trip around the world, said: "All 
the way round I have repeated the Apostles' Creed. It grew richer and 
richer through the months and the new conditions. In the face of gods 
uncounted It was Rood to believe In God the Father Almighty. In the 
face of Asia's degradation and despair it was Rood to believe In JesuB 
Christ, our Lord, and In the Holy Ghost. At Bombay and Singapore and 
Poochow we heard of the death of dear friends. Then we repeated apaln 
with a new Joy. 'I bellovo In the resurrection of the body and the life 
everlasting.' " — Selected. 

The Tomb Has Lost Its Terror (429). 
The story Is told that a chamber In a certain dwelling was reputed 



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to be haunted, and the family regarded it with terror. But one night the 
father determined to sleep in it himself, and coming forth the next morn- 
ing all safe and sound, laughed away the fears of his children. So our 
Lord entered the grave, and dwelt among the dead; but in the morning 
he issued forth crying to his affrighted ones, "All hall!" and the gloomy 
chamber Is divested of Its terror. — Selected. 

After Death, Life (430). 

When Christmas Evans, the famous Welsh preacher, was dying, he 
waved his hand and said, "Good-by; drive on!" Upon Dean Alford's 
tombstone has been placed a beautiful description of a grave: "The 
inn of a traveler on his way to Jerusalem." Once in the Alps a hunter 
on the Mer de Glace fell Into a deep crevasse in the ice, and crept along 
under the immense mass for a long distance, 'ollowing a stream till he 
came to a barrier beneath which the water plunged. He had no choice 
but to fling himself into the swift, cold current and let it carry him 
whither it would. There was darkness for a minute, and then he found 
himself borne Into the free air and lovely sunshine of the vale of 
Chamouni. This is a true parable of the Christian death. — Peloubet. 

God's Colonization Method (431). 

Martineau wisely said, "Death is God's method of colonization." It 
is a beautiful sentence. The halls of God would be silent and the man- 
sions empty but for the ministrations of death. 

I met in Chicago a little while ago a young man who shortly after 
marriage failed in business and then migrated from England here. "It 
was hard for the home-folks to let me go, but they are glad enough that 
I came now. But I have a home for them now," pointing to a neat little 
house. "Next week I am expecting my wife. I have been decorating it 
the way she likes. Next year I hope Mother and Father will come. 
Ah, sir! It was hard to part, but you can't think how glad they are I 
came!" "In my Father's house there are many mansions." "Death is 
God's method of colonization." He is not dead; he is gone before. — 
Rev. N. Carter Daniell. 

A Living Christ (432). 
Personally I have no more use for a dead Christ than I have for a 
molten image. The Christ who once did loving deeds and does them no 
more, who once spoke words of comfort but has been silent for cen- 
turies, means nothing to me. It is the Christ whose fellowship I can share, 
that I want, the Christ who in danger says now as once he said, 
"Fear not, I am with thee," a Christ of whom we can still say, "There 
Btood by me this night one whose I am, and whom I serve," a Christ 
who, when we have done our best and all that remains is the conscious- 
ness of our own Impotence, we realize is near us, that is the Christ I 
want, and that is the Christ my faith today acclaims. The "seeing him 
who is invisible" is the awakening of our soul, the energizing of our ef- 
forts, the sustaining of our courage, and that shall one day be the thou- 
sandfold reward of our poor service, when we see him as he is, and in 
complete fellowship shall be made in his likeness. — Dr. Wilfred T. 
Grenfell. 



LVII. "THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD IS 

JESUS." 

"That was the true light which llghteth every man that cometh into the 
world."— John 1:9. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. N. Smyth treated this theme in this way: 

I. The Scripture opens to us God's living way of making himself 
known on earth. The Bible is the record and interpretation of a way of 
creation and of life which leads from the promise of the beginning on 
and on, with a purpose never given up, and a goal never lost from sight, 
until it completes its course in that one sinless life through which God 
shines — the true Light, the Light which llghteth every man that cometh 
into the world. God has been present as a living power in man's life, 
as the educating and redemptive power in Israel, as the grace and truth 
of life in Jesus Christ who has declared him. Such is God's real self- 
revelation; his life in men's life, his life in the Christ for our life. The 
written Gospel is. Indeed, worthy of the God-Man. His spirit is in it. 
Nevertheless, our faith in the real and original revelation, in the Christ 
of the Gospels, does not depend upon absolute flawlessness in the re- 
flecting glass. That is a question, in fact, for the critics. Let them 
examine and scrutinize every point in the whole Bible to their hearts' 
content We are not anxious to dispute concerning the composition of 
the mirrors; we are content to receive the light which, by its own 
radiance, proclaims its celestial source. In this light of life we can walk, 
rejoicing as children of the day. 

II. This Scripture discloses God's way of Illuminating our lives. 
Christ entering Into human life is its light. The Christ from God alone 
Is equal to all human needs. He only touches human nature in all its 
chords; beats all life's music out; lights up all our history. Christianity 
alone Is the truth sufficient for the life of the whole world. Christ re- 
news man at the center and then throughout the whole circumference 
of his powers and possibilities. 

DX Only through lives in real sympathy with God In Christ are 
we to receive the light of the world. You cannot, by any possibility, 
know God In Christ simply by argument and much reasoning. Through 
life to knowledge Is the Christian way. Go and follow Jesus In his way 
of ministry among men, if you would know his father and your Father. 
As God has come home to man through the life of Christ, so we are to 
draw near unto God through the Christian life. 

• * * 

In commenting on this theme Rev. W. Frank Scott said: 

I. Jesus Is the light of the world, In revealing the evil In men's 
Hearts. 

II. In the revelation of the higher spiritual law. 

III. In that he points out the way of safety. 



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IV. In revealing to men the existence and eternity of life beyond 
the grave. 

V. Without ChriBt the world is in spiritual darkness. 

* * * 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Light on the Soul's Problems (433). 
I was speaking concerning the claims of Jesus Christ, when I saw 
an old, gray-haired man, evidently especially interested. I beckoned him 
to come near to me at the close of the service, and then I made the 
statement again, that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, because he said 
he was, and proved his claim by what he did. The old man looked at 
me for a moment and said, "Yes, but he might have been deceived." 1 
said, "Do you mean to say that Jesus Christ was a fanatic, and not to 
be accepted as a teacher?" He said, "I should not like to go so far a3 
that." I held out my Bible to him, and said, "Take this Bible and read 
all the words of Jesus, and if you can find one single sentence in all 
the sayings of Jesus that represents him in any other way than as the 
most marvelous of teachers, as any other than the Son of God, then I 
will agree in the presence of this audience to turn away from my posi- 
tion and take yours." — Chapman. 

Christ Self-Revealing (434). 

An ancient legend tells of one who lighted a torch and sallied forth 
to seek the sun. But we need no torch to discover the sun; the sun 
discovers itself. We best find it by its own light. 

"I am the light of the world." We need no extraneous evidence to 
attest the Divine authority of our Lord. The sincere of heart must rec- 
ognize in him "the master light," and listening to and obeying his teach- 
ings we prove that light of life which is its own witness. We need 
invent no instrument to know that the sun shines at noon; and thou- 
sands of men need no labored treatises to assure them of the authority 
of their Lord; his words, finding the reason, conscience and heart, bear 
witness of him. 

Many failed to recognize in Jesus a teacher sent from God because 
of their insincerity and hardness of heart. Many do so still. Let us 
with honest hearts listen to the great Teacher. He beareth witness of 
himself, and the Father that sent him beareth witness also. — Selected. 

All Dark Without Christ (435). 

There is a story told by Henry van Dyke called "The Lost Word," 
which illustrates the irreparable loss of one who parts with Christ. It 
is a story of one of the early centuries. Hermas had given himself to 
Christ. He belonged to a wealthy pagan family. His father disinherited 
him and drove him out of his home when he accepted Christianity. 

In the Grove of Daphne one day Hermas sat down by a gushing 
spring, and there came to him a priest of Apollo, who began to talk to 
him. In the end the old man made this bargain with Hermas. He was 
to assure him of wealth, happiness and success, and Hermas was to 
give him only a word: he was to part with the name of him whom he 
had learned to worship. "Let me take that word, and all that belongs 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD IS JESUS" 



283 



to it, entirely out of your life. I promise you everything," said the old 
man, "and this is all I ask of you in return. Do you consent?" "ifes, 
I consent," said Hermas. So he lost the word. 

Hennas went hack to Antioch to his old home. He found his father 
dying. The old man received his son eagerly to tell him the secret of 
the Christian faith he had chosen. "You found something in the Chris- 
tian faith that made you willing to give up your life for it. Tell me 
what it is!" Hermas began, "Father, you must believe with all your 

heart and soul and strength in ." Where was the word? He had 

lost it. 

Sitting one day with his wife beside him and his baby on his knee, 
he thought of his old faith, and longed to thank Christ and seek his 
blessing. Going to an old shrine in the garden, he tried to pray, but 
could not. He had lost the Name in which alone prayer could be 
offered. One day his boy was terribly hurt and he wanted to pray for 
his life, but again, the Name was gone. 

Thus in three great hours of need, Hermas, forgetting that he had 
given up the blessed Name, turned to seek the help that could be got 
only through that Name, and found nothing but blankness and empti- 
ness. 

The World's Only Light (436). 

One day a party was crossing the Caspian Sea in a boat. One of 
the men kept looking up into the sky, and did not take his eyes from a 
certain star. One of the passengers asked him why he kept looking at 
the stars, and he said: "Do you see that star? If we lose sight of 
that one star, we are lost, because that Is the only way we know in 
which direction to steer our boat." So if our eyes are not on Jesus 
then we are lost. It is more Important to see Jesus than anything else 
In the world. 

The Ever Shining Light (437). 

Light of the world! forever, ever shining. 

There la no change in thee, 
True light of life, all Joy and health enshrining. 

Thou canst not fade or flee. 

Thou hast arisen; but thou decllnest never; 

Today shines as the past, 
All that thou wast, thou art and shalt be ever, 

Brightness from first to last. 

Night visits not thy sky, nor etcrm, nor sadness. 

Day nils up all ItB blue; 
Unfailing beauty and unfaltering gladness, 

And love forever new. 

Light of the world! undlmmlng and unsottlng, 

Oh, shine each mist away. 
Banish tho tear, the falsehood and the frottlng, 

Be our unchanging day! — Horatlus Flonar. 



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The Truth Shines Out From Christ (438). 
As the soul is clothed in flesh, and only thus is able to perform its 
functions In this earth, where it is sent to live; as the thought must find 
a word before it can pass from mind to mind; so every great truth seeks 
some body, some outward form, in which to exhibit its powers. It ap- 
pears in the world, and men lay hold of it, and represent it to them- 
selves, in histories, in forms of words, in sacramental symbols; and 
these things, which, in their proper nature are but illustrations, stiffen 
Into essential fact, and become part of the reality. — Froude. 

"The Light Which Lighteth" (439). 
If we wish to shut the light out of our rooms we must not only 
close the windows and doors, but we must seal up every keyhole and 
every chink and crevice, or some urgent ray will pierce its way in. The 
gracious, long- suffering Lord is not easily driven away. He thrusts him- 
self in upon us wherever there is the smallest opening. If we "have 
faith as a grain of mustard seed," even through that small opening he 
will come in and work wonders. — J. H. Jowett, D.D. 

Our Need of the Unfailing Light (440). 

Sunshine is never continuous. Every year, and nearly every day, 
brings its gladness and gloom, successes which make us proud, and dis- 
appointments which teach us humility. "I saw in my dream," says a 
poet, "two fountains flowing side by side. One was a fountain of joy 
and the other of tears. And a voice said in me, 'These two fountainb 
flow together all through human life. God makes them flow together 
that from one his children may learn gratitude, and from the other 
trust.' " 

"A day not clear, nor dark." Not dark, certainly. There is no dark- 
ness for the soul that rests in Almighty love. There are shadows under 
the shelter of his everlasting wings, but no deep gloom. Not dark, as- 
suredly, whilst your life is crowned with loving kindness and tender 
mercies, and you have the blessing of friendships, and the kisses of 
tender affection, and the interest of honest work and broad human sym- 
pathies, and grand religious hopes. The day cannot be dark which has 
all this light and joy and uplifting. And yet there are clouds. For 
friends pass away; and lips that met in kisses are parted by distrust 
or death, and sickness and trouble come into happy homes; and children 
take wrong courses and destroy your hopes. There is always uncer- 
tainty. The brightest spells of sunshine are followed by the thickest 
clouds. We are never elated by a great gain or joy but something 
comes to sting, to humble, and rebuke. We should think ourselves gods, 
with no need of prayer, if it were not for this: "Lest we should be ex- 
alted above measure, there is always given the thorn in the flesh" — 
yes, there Is always the mixing of up and down, laughter and tears, calm 
and storm. It is a day not clear, nor dark — Greenhough. 



LVIII. THE LAMB OF GOD. 



"Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." — John 
1:29. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

In preaching on this text, Dr. L. A. Banks said: 

This text is one of those sublime and splendid pictures bo full of 
condensed truth, so rich in the very gold cf the Word of God, that one 
is discouraged in the outset at trying to preach about it. For it is im- 
possible for the most eloquent man who ever lived to add anything to 
the beauty or strength of this magnificent utterance of John. I can 
only cause you to look at it from different standpoints, and try like 
John to hide myself and any thought of my own while you "behold the 
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." 

Perhaps we may serve this purpose the better if we begin at the last 
part of the sentence and pursue it steadily to the opening. "The sin ol 
the world." What a significant statement that is, and yet none could 
be more true. That the world "lieth in wickedness" is the universal 
testimony of history, which is constantly emphasized by our personal 
observation. The awful fact of sin, the disaster which it works in human 
life, the moral disease and degradation which it brings about in the 
very nature of the soul itself, is at once one of the saddest and most 
important themes for our consideration. Many try to escape the con- 
sideration of it, and shrink from the subject when it is pressed home 
upon their attention. And yet nothing is so unwise, no folly is so great 
or so dangerous, as to permit ourselves to he blinded for a moment to 
the doom that must come upon the sinful heart 

* * * 

A speaker in Boston obtained temporary headline notoriety by de- 
claring tbat too much had been made of the cross in connection with 
the presentation of Christianity to the world architecturally and other- 
wise. 

We believe that the speaker's contention was not so iconoclastic an 
the dally papers indicated. Apparently he was enamored of the idea 
of the star, which is another reputable and historic Christian symbol, 
and would substitute that for the cross on the walls of our churches and 
their steeples. 

L What a colossal task indeed it would be to push the cross into the 
background. To begin, one would have to reconstruct the New Testa- 
ment Then he would have to revise thoroughly the hymns and creeds 
of the Church. Then he would have to turn his attention to the master- 
pieces of artists and sculptors, to the outward form and ornamentation 
of our temples of worship. Finally, he would be confronted with the 
cross as the dominant factor In the Christian experience of the saints 
from Peter and John and Paul to Dwlght L. Moody and William Booth. 

OL Tho cross In In Christianity to stay because Jesus' life was poured 
out upon It, because his hnnglng therr-on generates a strange and won- 
derful Influence upon the hearts of ull kinds of men tho world over 



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and through all the Christian centuries because it assures sinners of 
God's love and forgiveness. 

III. The cross is a new thing since Jesus endured and glorified it. Be- 
fore then it was a gibbet upon which common criminals were executed. 
Since then it has been a precious and inspiring emblem of the Christian 
faith. By all means let us have the star, too, for ours is a religion of hope 
and aspiration. But before hope can mount very high it must have some 
justification for its existence. Since the cross of Jesus was set up in 
the midst of human sorrow and sin and shame, Christians have not been 
without some clew to the mystery of pain. They have had an incentive 
to the patient bearing of their own crosses and as they have emblazoned 
it on their banners and inscribed it on their hearts, they have gone 
forth, and are still going forth, conquering and to conquer. — Congrega- 
tionalism 

* * * 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
"For the Sin of the World" (441). 

There is a supposedly humorous but really tragic story afloat of a 
little girl who, being sent to pray God to be forgiven for a naughty trick, 
returned to assure her mother that God had answered: "Oh, that's 
nothing, child; don't mention it," 

And it is just about this same sort of answer which the modern 
world, forgetful of Calvary, imagines it hears God saying concerning 
Its sins. The notion of forgiveness that runs current today is that an 
indulgent Father, too kind to punish, good-naturedly consents to forget 
the errors of his children. On such an idea of God's forgiving placidly 
and carelessly, there naturally follows the easy-going impression that one 
sin more or less makes no difference; God doesn't keep strict accounts. 
From that the door is open to almost any kind of moral relaxation. 

But the Bible encourages no namby-pamby trifling like this. The 
Bible demonstrates, with earthquaking seriousness, that whenever a man 
sins, the lawless act throws awry everything that God is working for in 
his universe; and in order to bring the dislocation straight, God must 
strain all the sinews of omnipotence in an agonizing struggle to pre- 
serve righteousness. 

A world in which those who sin stand as favorably with a complac- 
ent God as those who live right, would be a world in which it would be 
impossible to uphold any law of righteousness at all. In such conditions 
every moral standard would crash. 

So the only way God can release sinners from punishment without 
abolishing righteousness is to bear the punishment himself. And that is 
the appalling yet appealing fact that he exhibited on Calvary. That is 
what the cross of his Son means. Easy pardon, easy sin. But such as 
know that "his own self bare our sins in his body on the tree" — such 
as have heard their forgiven transgressions echoed in the agonized cries 
of suffering Deity — will Increase from day to day in passionate desire 
to Bin no more. — The Continent. 

The Lamb Slain (442). 
In the eighteen years of solitary travel in Africa Livingstone was 
worn out. Reduced by fever, starved, disabled, bereaved, a man 



THE LAMB OF QOD 



287 



of Borrows and acquainted with grief, he not only opened up Central 
Africa by his discoveries, but touched the imagination and heart of the 
world by his sufferings. It was his death that completed and crowned 
this breaking of his body for Africa. Borne in a litter to Chitambo's 
country, and laid in the hut at llala, he finished his course. On his 
knees he was found, dead, arresting forever the attention of the 
Church, and challenging Christians to evangelize Africa, To make the 
breaking of his body perfect and manifest for all time, the heart was 
burled there in the center of the continent, and the body was brought 
by Susi and Chamah to the coast, and thence to the central shrine of 
the Anglo-Saxon world. Out of the broken body has sprung the evan- 
gelization of the Congo and of the Uganda; Livingstonia and the mission 
stations on Nyassa testify to it. It will work Its miracles until all 
Africa is won to Christ, — Robert F. Horton. 

Our Sin and Our Saviour (443). 

Dr. Dale in one of his books tells of a visitor from the Far East 
who once spent a day with him at his home in Birmingham. They 
found so much of common interest and kindred experience that they 
talked far into the night Finally, aB the time drew near when they 
must retire, Dr. Dale said to his guest: "Before we part I want you to 
tell me how you came to accept Christianity. That I should have be- 
come a Christian was entirely natural. I was brought up in a Christian 
home and in the midst of a great Christian civilization. But that a cul- 
tivated man brought up in an altogether different faith should have 
become an ardent and devoted follower of Christ Is quite another mat- 
ter. Tell me how it came about." And then the visitor told about his 
spiritual yearnings and how his ancestral faith failed to satisfy them, 
how at length there fell into his hands a copy of the four Gospels, hov* 
he read them through without stopping, read them with burning heart 
and growing conviction, and how at length, when he had reached the 
heart of the Gospel of John, he said: "It must be true — it iB true — 
for It 1b Just what I have been longing for and searching for." And with 
conviction cam6 surrender and In that surrender the freedom and peace 
which Jesus Christ alone can give. 

This cultivated Oriental felt the same sense of Bin which we our- 
selves have felt, realized his need of a Saviour Just as we realize ours, 
nnd found that need supplied In Jesus Christ precisely as we do. — Se- 
lected. 

Chrltt For Us (444). 
Miss Mary Ford, a missionary In Syria, said: In a certain village 
In Syria there Is a large family of Jews, who were living In discord — 
brothers and sisters and their families at variance, some of them not 
speaking to or having anything to do with others. There was no peace 
or happiness among them. At length they decided that this sta t e of 
things must come to an end, but no one would acknowlodne himself In 
the wrong, or sacrifice his own Interest for the sake of peace. They 
finally agreed to settle It In the following way by making one of them 
fldda, or "substitute," or "redeemer," and they Belocted the wife of tlio 
youngest son. She was forced to return to her husband whom she had 



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left because of unkind treatment, and he was at liberty to vent upon 
her all his anger, not only against her, but against all the others. The 
rest of the family refrained from cursing and abusing each other, but 
relieved their feelings by heaping tbem all on her, as she was the fidda. 
Husbands and wives became reconciled, brothers and sisters controlled 
their bitter words after having spent them upon the poor substitute, 
who said to the missionary, "My life has become a burden more heavy 
than I can bear. I wish I were dead." And this was among the Jews, 
to whom was first given the knowledge of the world's Redeemer, or 
Fidda. — Sunday School Times. 

The Cross of Christ (445). 

When the Portuguese colonists, following the trail of Vasco da 
Gama, first settled Macao, on the coast of South China, one of the 
earlier buildings they erected was a massive cathedral on a hill crest, 
with a splendid approach of stone steps. But a violent China Sea ty- 
phoon proved too severe a test for even the massive building, and three 
centuries ago the cathedral feH, all save the front wall. It has never 
been rebuilt, and that ponderous facade has stood as a sort of mournful 
monument ever since. On the top of this facade stands a great bronze 
cross, clean cut against the sky, defying rain and lightning and typhoon. 
It is a striking thing to see; and when Sir John Bowring — then Governor 
of Hongkong — visited Macao in 1825, he was impressed by that crosa 
surmounting the ruined church. 

The sight inspired the famous hymn, "In the cross of Christ I glory, 
towering o'er the wrecks of time." Since that day, thousands of visi- 
tors have looked upon the ruin, and the cross that glorifies the ruin; 
some with indifference, some with curiosity, some with reverence. The 
hymn sung by the world-circling Church of God for nearly ninety years, 
was born in the mind of the British Governor of Hongkong, by the sight 
of the same cross that stands today "towering o'er the wrecks of time." 
As you sing this hymn, think of a great ruined wall on a misty hill-top; 
birds nesting on its hideous gargoyles, the sea and the mountains and 
the sky of China seen through its gaping doors and windows; aitd over 
all the Cross, changing desolation to majesty. 

Sir John has gone but his hymn remains; the builders of that dis- 
tant cathedral are long since forgotten, but the cross they reared there 
in memory of the Crucified One remains. And time has seen mightier 
wrecks than a cathedral. The monarchy that built it has gone; the 
priesthood that burned incense within it has been driven from the 
colony forever; and the iron dynasty that ruled those Chinese hills ne- 
yond the bay has crumbled as did the church of stone. But the cross, it 
stands. And the light of that sacred story is bringing liberty and light 
and life to Portuguese and Chinese; and in these days of ours we begin 
to catch the vision of that radiant day when all men shall know the 
story of the Cross and from the heart shall worship the Christ of the 
Cross and of the Throne. — Rev. Francis E. Wilber. 



LIX. SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION. 

"Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God."— 
John 3:3. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. B. B. Tyler summarized this truth in these words: 
It is the peculiar excellence and glory of our religion that it is spir- 
itual; that the soul of man is quickened, enlightened, sanctified, and 
consoled by the indwelling presence of the spirit of the eternal God. 
To his disciples, in view of the great work to which he had called them 
— the evangelization of the world — Jesus said, "Receive ye the Holy 
Ghost" The gift of the Holy Spirit was not peculiar to the chosen am- 
bassadors of the Christ. The same gift is expressly promised "to them 
that obey him." The saints in Ephesus trusted in Jesus after they heard 
the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation, and after they believed 
they were sealed with the Holy Spirit which had been promised. Saint 
Paul exhorts his brethren to pray "always with all prayer and supplica- 
tion in the Spirit;" and assures them that he prays to our Lord Jesua 
Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth Is named, that he 
would grant them according to the richeB of his glory to be strength- 
ened with might by his Spirit in the inner man. This blessing is needed 
by Christians now; and it may be possessed and enjoyed by faith, love, 
obedience, and prayer. Be assured that "our Father which art in 
heaven" will freely "give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. J. H. Jowett impressed the fact of our dependence upon 
regeneration for all spiritual power as follows: 

Ye shall receive that power when the Holy Ghost has come upon 
you; power to see sin, power to loathe It, power to expel it and cast out 
the devil. Does it do it? 

* * * 

In Professor Coover'B book on Christian experience a young fellow 
the son of a clergyman, at Oxford University, makes this confession: 
"Before the period of leaving Oxford, and my conversion, I never dark- 
ened the door of my father's church, although I lived with him. For 
eight years I made what money I could at journalism and spent it on 
high carousals with anybody who would sit with me and drink. I was 
converted through Drummoncfs book, 'The Natural Law In the Spiritual 
World.* Then I made on my knees my first prayer before God for twenty 
years, and then the Holy Spirit came. And from that hour drink has had 
no terrors for me. I never touch it and I never want it." Another is 
this: One morning there came Into a Birmingham Bible School an old 
man who said that for over tlfty years ho had been a slave to drink, 
and was on the verge of suicide when one of the men brought him to 
the school. He came rcKularly but didn't give up the drink, and one 
of the brothers asked him, "Why don't you throw the drink to the 
dogs?" "I can't," he said. He had reachod the stage when he cried, 
"O, wretched man that I am; who shall deliver mo from the body of 



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this death?" Then his friend quietly told him that Jesus came on pur- 
pose to do for us what we could not do for ourselves, and presently the 
old man knelt down and prayed, "O, God, take the drink curse away 
from me." He said to my friend afterward, "Since then I have not 
known what it is to want a drink." Even the drink curse is overcome 
by the power of the Holy Ghost. Dr. Dale of Birmingham was very un- 
certain what to say when Sankey and Moody first came to that town. 
For a while he held aloof, but at the end of the mission, a year after- 
ward, he came as a witness, and I remember one sentence of his testi- 
mony. He said, "I have seen the sun rise on the Rigi, and it was & 
glorious sight, but the glory of the sunrise on the Rigi is a shadow com- 
pared with the sunrise I saw in saloons in Birmingham when the power 
of the Holy Ghost came and destroyed the sovereignty and night of sin 
and brought in the morning." You can have that power in China or in 
New York. "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon 
you." 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

A Regenerated Soul (447). 

It is Christ himself, immediately realized, who makes the heroism 
of Christianity. 

In Atlanta, Ga., a few months ago all the evil resorts were peremp- 
torily closed by the chief of police. When the order went forth, a Chris- 
tian citizen called together the ministers of the city and put at their 
disposal unlimited money, and we went down into the vice district as 
good brothers of our poor sisters and offered them Christian homes, 
Christian schools and a way of escape from the life of sin. I went 
into one of the houses — a veritable palace of vice — and the woman who 
kept the place met me defiantly and was very bitter. Three days later 
that woman came to the headquarters of the Men and Religion Move- 
ment and gave herself over to us for the service of God. She laid down 
on the table before our eyes $2,500, which represented all her earthly 
wealth, and she told this story: 

"I left Atlanta and went to Birmingham, and I was mad with every- 
body; but in the hotel there on Sunday, something told me I must leave 
my old life and that I must go and be a friend of the poor girls who 
have gone astray. I wept all day, and during the night something spoke 
to me and told me to come back to Atlanta, and to take everything 1 
had and give it for a home for the girls." When we attempted to reason 
with her and to impress upon her that this money was everything she 
had, she would simply reply: "Jesus told me to do it and I know he 
will take care of me if I do everything he tells me." 

Today in that city stands the Martha Home for Wayward Girls. 
The same Master who took Peter's boat and nets and caught the multi- 
tude of fishes, 1,900 years ago, took that woman's life and her money 
and built that home. She had no power, and yet she is a power. — Rev. 
John G. White, D.D. 

Regeneration (449). 

Regeneration must not be stereotyped, standardized by hard-and- 
fast rules of human invention. We must remember, with Professor 
Bowne, that "God makes persons alike in the religious life as little as 



SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION 



291 



he makes them alike in mind or body or circumstances." The infinite 
variety exhibited in the physical world is seen in the world of souls. 
Stars differ in glory, and so do humans. Diversity is very dear unto 
God. Personal identity in the midst of boundless variety is one 
of the surpassing glories of human life. Christ's coming into 
the soul may be as various as the blades of grass, as the 
drops of dew, as the grains of sand, as the worlds that golden the 
midnight sky, no two of which are exactly alike. Christ may come in 
on the mystic barge of dreams, whispering, "I am the Captain of thy soul. 
Henceforth we sail the deeps of eternity together." He may come in 
an agony of despair. He may come in volcanoes of pain. He may 
come in the darkness of terrible anguish. He may come through a mist 
of fertile tears. He may come like a glad surprise, lifting us to heights 
Immortal. He may come as lyric trumpets of joy, blowing their spiritual 
reveille and summoning the soul to fight the good fight with soldierly 
courage. But however and whenever he comes, we know that lesser 
Joys wane; that old powers of evil release their grip upon the soul; that 
spiritual night fades before the soft illumination of his inner dawn. — 
Rev. Frederick F. Shannon. 

The Difference It Makes (450). 

A maiden from her birth had some singular defect of vision. It 
was only by degrees that her family realized the extent of her trouble, 
and she was almost grown before an oculist saw her and pronounced an 
operation on the eye necessary. 

For weeks after this critical time the patient was kept within doors 
and carefully guarded, but one balmy night she stepped out alone upon 
the lawn, and almost immediately returned to the family circle in a 
glow of excitement. 

"Oh! come," she cried, "come and see what has happened to the 
sky." 

They hastened out with her and saw nothing but the familiar glory 
of the stars; she had never seen the stars before! 

Transformation (451). 

When Halley's comet was far in the depths of space, It was cold, 
dark, slow moving. Even there, however, the sun's power was at work 
upon It, drawing It toward itself. As It comes near that luminary, it 
feels the heat, electricity, and other forces proceeding therefrom. These 
awaken Inward pulsations which result In the development of the coma 
about the nucleus and the stretching out of the tall across the heavens. 
When the process Is complete, that which long was Invisible, then hardly 
seen as a faint nebulous patch, has been "fashioned anew, the body of 
Its humiliation conformed to the body of his glory" who has unfailingly 
worked for it, upon It, and in It. Even at its worst, all these splendid 
possibilities were within it. 

Changed Clean Through (452). 

During a vlBlt to St. Mark's In Venice, Dr. Chapman noticed the ala- 
baster pillars beside the great altar. They were dull and lifeless- 
strange they should be there. The guide took a llghtod taper and held 
It before one of the pillars. Then Its beauty appeared, color radiated 



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from it and filled a great circle with light. All that happened was that 
light had fallen on its dullness and it had answered with light. No less 
thing than that is planned hy Jesus Christ for his followers. No less 
thing, a vastly greater thing! The change he works is not upon them, 
but within them. He would make the King's daughters and sons all 
glorious within. He would not shine on us as the taper ray falls on 
alabaster; he would be a blaze of glory in our lives that shall transform 
them throughout. Some one tells of a countryman going into the capi- 
tol at Albany and hearing It said that certain columns were Scotch 
granite. He tapped them thoughtfully. "Scotch granite," he said* "is 
it polished that way clean through?" A Christian ought to be changed 
clean through; in the secret life, in the open life, in the whole life. — 
Selected. 

A Quickened Mind (453). 

In the biography of Hugh Price Hughes, his daughter writes: "My 
father's conversion was the prelude of a great awakening of mental 
power." And she goes on to say the opening of the powers of the spirit 
was the opening of the doors to his mind and those powers began to 
wake when the soul became alive unto God. Hugh Price Hughes was 
not only mentally quickened to life by the Holy Ghost, but the slug of 
sloth was never allowed to intervene. In the biography of John Wesley, 
who was possessed in every move of his life by the Holy Spirit, you 
will never find the slug of sloth. He was always on the move, always 
alert, always at his best. Augustine Birrell in his life of Wesley says: 
"I have fought many a contested election in England for a Parliamentary 
seat, but John Wesley contested the United Kingdom for God through- 
out a long life." 

Transformed (454). 

It was a piece of marble which somebody had hacked and marred 
and cast aside as worthless. It had lain for years in a rubbish-heap, 
soiled and half buried in dirt. But there came a great day when the man 
saw it who was a great artist. A real artist is one who can see what 
nobody else can see — in a flower, a stretch of beach or a piece of stone. 
And this man saw something in the rejected block, and with the artist- 
key, which they call a chisel, he set to work to bring it out of prison. 

For many days he labored; now making the marble chips fly as he 
hammered with fierce eagerness, now working slowly, with delicate 
touch, and often stepping backward to see the figure afresh. And one 
day the prisoner came forth, radiant in white. It was the noble figure of 
a young man, eager to serve the God whose voice he had heard. It was 
David! standing with his sling in hand, ready to meet Goliath. 

That was more than 300 years ago. The statue stands today in a 
great gallery in Italy. — Rev. Frank T. Bagley. 



LX. GOD'S TRANSCENDENT LOVE TRANS- 
CENDENTLY DEMONSTRATED. 

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlast- 
ing life." — John 3:16. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. John Watson (Ian Maclaren) commented on this text in 
these words: 

It is for every person to settle with himself what he will do with this 
gTeat sacrifice which has been offered by Jesus according to the will of 
God, upon the Cross of Calvary, and with the innumerable benefits which 
the sacrifice has won. We have the same liberty of choice with regard 
to the sacrifice of Christ that we have with regard to the sacrifice of 
patriots. Should it be our pleasure, we can avail ourselves of the liberty 
and of the right which men of old have won for our commonwealth and 
carry ourselves as free-born citizens, and accept the responsibility of 
our high citizenship. Or we can carry ourselves as bondsmen, refusing 
any share in the government of the country and rendering no service. 
We can also accept with grateful heart the spiritual blessings which 
are bestowed by the Cross, claiming the forgiveness of sins, and taking 
our place as the sons of God. Or we can prefer guilt to righteousness, 
and remain of our own will in the bondage of sin. Two things are cer- 
tain, that no one can achieve his own salvation, and that our salvation 
has been accomplished by Jesus Christ, and still another thing is quite as 
certain, that by an act of consent any one can place himself within the 
merit of Jesus' sacrifice and so make himself an heir to Its fullness of 
life. 

Of the last clause of this text Dr. G. H. Morrison said: 
Put in another way that Just means this, that Christ is thinking of 
quality not quantity. Life Is eternal in virtue of its quality, rather than 
in virtue of duration. You can never measure life by its duration. The 
two are not commensurate at all. We take the equal hours that the clock 
gives, and we mould them In the matrix of the heart. And one shall 
seem to ub to be unending, It Is bo weighted with a leaden Borrow; and 
another shall have but flashed upon us when It has passed away, and 
that forever. There have been hours for you when you have lived more 
than in the passage of a hundred days. There have been momenta when 
you have Been more deeply than In the groplngs of all a heavy winter. 
Life mocks at time. Life tramples In disdain upon the calendar. Llfe'8 
trueBt measurement la never quantity, It Is quality. Christ was thinking 
of a life so full and deep that the very thought of time has passed away. 
When a river Is dry and shnllow In the summer-time, you see the rocka 
that rise within Its bed. And they obstruct the stream, and make It chafe, 
and fret It aa It Journeys to the ocean. But when the ralnB have come, 
and the river Is In flood. It covers up the rocks In Its great volume, and 
in the silence of a mighty tide, flows to its last home within the B«a. It 



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is not longer than it was before. It is only deeper than it was before. 
Measure it by miles, it is unchanged. Measure it by volume and how 
different! So with the life that is the gift of Jesus. It is that same river 
deepened gloriously, till death itself is hidden in the deeps. Knowledge 
is perfected in open vision; love is crowned in an unbroken fellowship; 
service at last shall be a thing of beauty, fired by the vision of the 
God we serve. That is eternal life, and that alone. That is its differ- 
ence from immortality. That is the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 
immortal spirit of mankind. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

He Died on Calvary (455). 

I was In an eye-infirmary in Chicago once. A mother brought a 
beautiful little babe to the doctor — a babe only a few months old — and 
wanted the doctor to look at the child's eyes. He did so, and pronounced 
it blind — blind for life — it will never see again. The moment he sail 
that, the mother seized it, pressed it to her bosom, and gave a terrible 
scream. It pierced my heart, and I could not but weep; the doctor 
wept; we could not help it. "Oh, my darling," she cried, "are you 
never to see the mother that gave you birth? Oh, doctor, I cannot stand 
it. My child, my child!" It was a sight to move any heart. But what 
is the loss of eyesight to the loss of a soul? I had a thousand times 
rather have these eyes taken out of my head and go to the grave blind, 
than lose my soul. I have a son, and no one but God knows how I love 
him; but I would see those eyes dug out of his head tonight rather 
than see him grow to manhood and go down to the grave without Christ 
and without hope. The loss of a soul! ChriBt knew what it meant. 
That is what brought him from the bosom of the Father; that is what 
brought him from the throne; that is what brought him to Calvary. 
The Son of God was in earnest. When he died on Calvary it was to 
save a lost world; it was to save your soul and mine. — Moody. 

The Central Truth (456). 
A young man had been preaching in the presence of a venerable 
divine, and after he had done, he went to the old minister and said: 
"What do you think of my sermon?" 

"A very poor sermon," said he; "there was no Christ in it." 

"Well," said the young man, "Christ was not in the text; we are 
not to be preaching Christ always; we must preach what is in the text." 

So the old man said: "Don't you know, young man, that from every 
town and every village, and every hamlet in England, wherever it may 
be, there is a road to London?" 

"Yes," said the young man. 

"Ah," said the old divine, "and from every text in Scripture there 
Is a road to the metropolis of the Scripture — that is Christ. And, my 
dear brother, your business is, when you get a text, to say, 'Now, what is 
the road to Christ?' and then preach a sermon, running along the road 
to the great metropolis — Christ. And," said he, "I have not yet found 
a text that hasn't a road to Christ in it. If I should, I would make one. 
I would go over hedge and ditch, but I would get at my Master, for the 



GOD'S LOVE DEMONSTRATED 



295 



sermon cannot do any good unless there is a savor of Christ in it." — 
Words and Weapons. 

How Christ Saves (457). 
A man who had been converted from a sinful life gave this experi- 
ence of his acceptance with Jesus: "I just crept to the feet of Jesus, and 
greatly to my astonishment, he did not scold me — he knew I had been 
scolded enough; and he didn't pity me; and he didn't give me any 
advice either. He knew I had had plenty of that He just put his arms 
around my neck and loved me. And when the sun arose I was a new 
man." — Harbough. 

The Power of the Cross to Save (458). 
My first impression of the natives of the New Hebrides drove me to 
the verge of utter dismay. On beholding these natives in their paint 
and nakedness and misery my heart was as full of horror as of pity. 
One day two hostile tribes met near our station; high words arose, and 
old feuds were revived. The discharge of muskets in the adjoining bush, 
and the horrid yells of the savages, soon informed us that they were 
engaged in deadly fights. Some of the women ran with their children to 
places of safety. We were afterward informed that five or six men had 
been shot dead; that their bodies had been cooked and eaten that very 
night 

Next evening, as we sat talking about the people and the dark 
scenes around us, the quiet of the night was broken by a wild, walling 
cry from the villages around, long-continued and unearthly. We were 
Informed that one of the wounded men, carried home from battle, had 
just died; and that they had strangled the widow to death, that her 
spirit might accompany him to the other world, and be his servant there, 
as she had been here. Now their dead bodies were laid side by side, 
ready to be burled In the sea. Our hearts sank, to think of all thiB hap- 
pening within ear-shot. Every new scene, every fresh incident, set more 
clearly before us the benighted conditions and shocking cruelties of these 
heathen people, and we longed to be able to speak to them of Jesus and 
the love of God. We eagerly tried to pick up every word of their lan- 
guage, that we might in their own tongue, unfold to them the knowledge 
of the true God and the salvation from all these sins through Jesus 
Christ. — In 1892 the whole population of Anlwa had become more rev- 
erently Christian than any other community I had visited. — Paton. 

"Stand Where the Fire Has Been" (460). 

An experience never to bo forgotten is that of those who have en- 
countered prairie fires on the Western plains. In the distance they have 
seen the clouds of smoke, and have smelled the burning grass. If the 
winds be blowing from the direction of the fire, their position is one of 
extreme danger. Tho swiftest horse can scarcely outrun the flames. On 
they sweep with the fury of tho hurricane, consuming everything In their 
path. In such circumstances tho only safety Is to set Are to the grass 
at one'B feet and stand where tho fire has been. The surging wavos of 
flame must ceaBe at the border of tho newly-burnt zone. 

In a very graphic way thiB Illustrates thn work of Christ He inter- 
poses himself between tho sinner and the waves of destruction that were 



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bearing down upon him. In his own body he bore the penalty of sin. 
Sin, so to speak, burnt over him; and in the gospel he is calling men to 
come to him for safety. 

It was on the cross of Calvary that the fire burned fiercest. It was 
the hour of the prince of darkness. The fury of Satan exhausted itself 
on the "Sinless Sufferer" there. And "there is therefore now no con- 
demnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." Standing where the flames 
have been, the sinner need not fear the fires of sin. They have no power 
over him. He has a life that is hid with Christ in God. No power on 
earth or in hell can pluck him out of the Father's hands. What an as- 
surance of safety! How gladly ought men to avail themselves of itl — 
Selected. 

The Battle of the Ages (461). 

The battle of the ages has come, and the center of it is in the Cross 
of Christ. It is no longer, "What think ye of Christ? Is he the Son of 
God or not?" but "What think ye of the blood?" To depreciate the blood, 
to repudiate the blood, to discount the blood, to count it just common 
blood, just like any reformer's blood spilled by a rabble — this is the 
battle of the powers of darkness against the truth today. Christian Sci- 
ence and kindred errors dress up the ethical teachings of Christ in beau- 
tiful clothes, and present them to us as Bible salvation. But there is no 
atoning blood in all their tenets, and therefore no Christ. When 
you get a desperate case of need — want to save one low down in degra- 
dation and sin, only the blood of Christ can make any impression of 
miracle-working. — St. Louis Christian Advocate. 



LXI. OTHER REFUGE HAVE I NONE. 



"To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."— John 6:68. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

In presenting Christ's transcendent claims upon men Dr. Samuel 
Charles Black said: The essential elements in ideal manhood, as viewed 
in the light of the new age, are four: Integrity, personal purity, the spirit 
of brotherhood, a grip on things divine. In what class of great men do 
we find them? Where shall we look to see these virtues worked out in 
daily living? Shall we find them among the great rulers? We must pass 
by Alexander, with his greed and gluttony, and Herod the Great, with his 
murderous heart, and Constantine and Charlemagne, who, though favor- 
able to Christianity, were ruthless of human life. We must pass by the 
kings called Louis In France and the Henrys of England. We muBt pass 
by Napoleon, the wizard of the battlefield, who lacked them all. 

May the great statesmen be looked to for these virtues? Hardly 
unto Rousseau or Richelieu or Machiavelli. Certainly not to Lord Bacon 
or Mazarln. Cavour and Gladstone and Washington and Lincoln had 
many virtues, but no man would dare to take them as patterns for 
the full round of life. Among great literary men neither Shakespeare nor 
Goethe may be followed. The former abdicated the throne his intel- 
lectual genius reared for him, preferring to live on the lower planes of 
life, and the latter, one admirer says, "Kept two friends busy, one plait- 
ing crowns for his brow, the other cleaning the mud from his lower gar- 
ments." Lord Byron and Robert Burns had the genius of Olympian gods, 
but lived so close to the earth as to early snuff out their gleaming can- 
dles. Andrea del Sarto had the brush of a Raphael. He has given to the 
world its greatest "head of Christ," but del Sarto sold his brush for gold 
and fell on disgrace and death ere half his course was run. 

Passing by the men whom the world considered great, manhood 
finds its ideal In one who was as simple as a child, pure as a virgin, 
helpful as one's best friend, self-effacing as a mother, fearless as a 
soldier, whose faith in God and heaven even Gethsemane and Calvary 
could not shake — Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, the Saviour of the 
World. All other men sink down and disappear when he approaches. 
He alone may be followed with safety. Never yet has he led one follower 
astray, but everyone, walking In his footsteps, has triumphed In life and 
passed through the gates into the city. 

Jesus alone Is the perfectly balanced man. There Is no leaning to 
right or left for personal gain, no sagging in the middle. The world may 
mock and scourge and abuse, may rob and strip and crucify; he Is the 
same calm, Belf-poBsessed Master. "Father, forgive them; they know 
not what they do." 

Men and women of today, do you really want the best? The best 
faith, the best life, the best achievement? Then pass by nil other leaderB 
and follow Jesus, tho Wonderful. And having made somn progress your- 
self, pray for and contribute townrd and work for the day when "we all, 
In the unity of tho faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, shull come 



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unto the perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ." 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Life With Christ Left Out (462). 
Paint a starless sky; hang your picture with night; drape the moun- 
tains with long, far-reaching vistas of darkness; hang the curtains deep 
along every shore and landscape, darken all the past; let the future be 
draped in deeper and yet deeper night; fill the awful gloom with hungry, 
sad-faced men and sorrow-driven women and children: It is the heathen 
world — the people seen in vision by the prophet — who sit in the region 
of the shadow of death, to whom no light has come; sitting there still, 
through the long, long night, waiting and watching for the morning. — 
Bishop Foster. 

Rejecting Christ Loses All (463). 
To reject him Is to reject all that is holy and happy In the universe. 
It is to reject all our hope and promise and true prosperity. As we con- 
tinue to repel him the dreadful deed becomes a habit. After a while we 
cease to hear his gentle knocking at the door of our hearts. He never 
ceases to knock, but we may cease to be able to open the door. When 
that time comes to a man, he has committed the unpardonable sin. 
Therefore the solemn warning of this lesson to all that study it is this: 
Hear Christ, while he calls today. Hear him, receive him gladly into 
your lives, and take him for your Saviour, your Master, your Guide for- 
ever! 

The Transcendent Christ (464). 
"I have once in my life experienced the influence of personal ascend- 
ancy in that high degree which some great personalities have exercised, 
and the occasion of which I speak was the more striking owing to the 
absence of concurrent pomp. It was on Garibaldi's arrival in London, 
where he was hailed as a hero. I was standing in Trafalgar Square when 
he reached it, driving up Parliament Street. His vehicle was a shabby 
open carriage, stuffed with Italians, regardless of style in dress; Garibaldi 
alone was standing. I had not been in a greatly excited or exalted mood, 
but the simplicity, goodness, and nobility impressed on every lineament 
of Garibaldi's face and person quite overcame me. I realized then, what 
I never did before or after, something of the impression that Jesus seems 
to have exercised on multitudes on more than one occasion. I am grate- 
ful to that experience for revealing to me the hero-worshipping poten- 
tialities of my nature." There came to this calm and critical scientific 
inquirer as he stood silent, observant, absorbed, the impression of the 
simplicity and goodness and nobility of a single-minded great-hearted 
man. It revealed to him the potentialities of his nature. When men see 
Christ, they see not only his simplicity and goodness and nobility, but 
they see his infinite purity and infinite pity, and infinite passion of love, 
and they rise up to the knowledge of his eternal sonship to God. — Clough 

Christ's Claims (465). 
Out on the Pacific Coast an old gentleman wrote me a letter, in 
which he said, "For fifty years I have been an infidel. A sentence I read 
In the report of the meetings which appeared in the newspapers set me 



OTHER REFUGE HAVE I NONE 



299 



thinking. I made up my mind that I would spend ten minutes of each 
day honestly studying the New Testament. I only got through the third 
day, when I had accepted Jesus Christ as my Saviour." Then he con- 
cluded by saying, "I believe that any thoughtful man who will consider 
carefully the claims of Jesus as recorded and substantiated in the New 
Testament, may come to know him before a week has passed." — 
Chapman. 

Afraid She Might Miss the Only Saviour (466). 

A friend was telling me some of her experiences. Miss Henderson 
was seated on the veranda of the Dufferin Hospital in India on© after- 
noon reading, when a high class Hindu woman came up the steps and 
asked for an interview with Miss Henderson. My friend rose to speak 
to her, and as she did so a copy of Holman Hunt's picture of Christ 
standing outside the closed door fell out of her book to the ground. The 
woman picked it up and looked at it. 

"Tell me about this," she said, her errand forgotten, as a woman long 
ago forgot her "water pots." "What does it mean?" 

Miss Henderson told her, and the woman went away. 

Summer passed into winter, and there was snow on the mountains, 
and the air was chill, and Miss Henderson went to call upon this woman. 

As she came near the house she saw the door standing wide open. 
She entered and — the physical need of the woman foremost in her mind, 
for she was a trained nurse — at once said: "You should not have your 
front door open so. The mountains are covered with snow, and it is cold." 

"I know it I have seen the snow, and I have felt the cold, but I 
thought that perhaps your Jesus might pass by, and I wanted him to 
find the door wide open." — Wlnant. 

The Only Full-Orbed Man (467). 

Where other men are fragmentary, JesuB was full-orbed. 

The natural oak is the perfect Charter Oak, the scrub oak is unnat- 
ural — and abnormal. The natural intellect is Paul's or Plato's, the one 
talent man 1b abnormal and unnatural. The natural imagination is that 
supreme gift at its best in Dante or Shakespeare, the peasant with his 
tortoiae-Ilke thought is abnormal and unnatural. On the banks of Hud* 
son's Bay and Greenland you will find the pine, the elm and the maple, 
but dwarfed to tiny shrubs by the Arctic chill. But they are abnormal 
trees. On this bank and shoal of time, chilled by sin, men's intellect, 
memory, conscience, hope and love, are dwarfed and shriveled. Here 
every sweet flower of the heart is repressed, but in Jesus the soul 
bloomed. He spake as never man spake. What wisdom in his Sermon 
on the Mount! What insight In his parables! What outlook upon the 
worlds beyond this, and the rooms beyond th's room of the Father's 
house! What keenness In his thinking! What unity and movement In 
his argument! In terms of genius Jesus had the finest intellect that 
earth has ever known. But what Jesus was as thinker, teacher, Beer, 
poet, philosopher, friend, patriot. Deliverer, that all men shall be when 
God and ChrlBt, and the resources of eternity have wrought their full 
ministry. In you, manhood Is In seed and root. Carry It up to perfec- 
tion, and you have a life llko Jesus' life. And, oh, what hope this brlngB 
to the pilgrim host defeatfd in their plans, dying with unaccomplished 



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aims, beaten back from this goal, denied this wreath of honor, with the 
cup of joy dashed from the lips at the moment it was lifted. What is 
incomplete here is to be completed there beyond! Dying in the forest or 
the wilderness, the youth beholding the face of Jesus sees as in a mirror 
the outline of his own face. In the belief that, beholding, he himself 
should be changed from glory to glory, he puts his dying hand in the 
hand of the Great Captain, to go joyfully into the shadow and disappear 
from earthly sight. — Hillis. 

Clinging to Christ (468). 

TJ. Bor. Sing, heir of the rajah of Cherry, India, was converted by the 
Welsh missionaries. He was warned that in joining the Christians he 
would forfeit his right to the throne of Cherry after the then ruling 
Prince. After the death of Rham Sing, the chiefs of the tribes met and 
unanimously decided that Bor. Sing was entitled to succeed him, but that 
his Christian profession stood in the way. Messenger after messenger 
was sent, urging him to recant, and they would all acknowledge him as 
king. His answer was: "Put aside my Christian profession? I can put 
aside my head-dress or my cloak, but as for the covenant I have made 
with my God, I cannot for any consideration put that aside." Since then 
he has been impoverished but is a Christian still. — The Wesleyan. 

To Whom Shall We Go (469). 

Shall we go to the Pharisees? They make great pretensions to right- 
eousness, but are not sincere, and they never make men better. Shall we 
go to the scribes? With all their learning they were not able to recognize 
the Light of the World when they saw him. Shall we go to the rulers 
of the people? They have no power to rule their own spirits. Shall we 
go to the world? The fashion thereof shall pass away. Shall we go to 
the philosophers? They are ever learning and never able to come to the 
knowledge of the truth. To whom shall we go in our ignorance, in our 
repentance, in our weakness, in our afflictions, in our sin? To whom shall 
we go with our burdens? Abraham Lincoln said: "I have been driven 
many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had 
nowhere else to go," — Selected, 



LXII. THE GOSPEL QF ANOTHER CHANCE. 



"Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more." — John 8:11. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

On "Chrlat the Forgiver," Rev. Dr. John T. McFarland said: ChriBtua 
Absolvator — Christ the Forgiver of Sins — no wonder the scribes were 
amazed and staggered when he assumed that character and prerogative. 
They were right when they asked, "Who can forgive sins but God only?" 
Jesus did not deny the implication. He knew perfectly well that it was 
blasphemy for a mere man to assume to forgive sins. No stronger dec- 
laration of his divinity, therefore, could have been made by him than 
when he said, "Thy sins be forgiven thee." In saying that he meant it 
to be understood that he was divine. So let us view him — the great Ab- 
solves If he were not that, everything else that he is or might be would 
be of little worth. His teachings, which set up such high standards, 
would aggravate human wretchedness, if he did not provide for the 
pardon of sin. 

* * * 

In discussing the experience of forgiveness Prof. W. H. Griffith 
Thomas wrote: This unspeakable blessing of forgiveness comes home 
to the soul on the authority of the word of Jesus Christ, "Son, be of good 
cheer; thy sins are forgiven," Matt. 9:2. "Her sins, which are many, 
are forgiven," Luke 7:47. This divine word is the foundation of assur- 
ance to the soul. Forgiveness is not dependent on human thought or 
emotion, or rapture, but on the sure, unerring word of God. 

And when thus assured, it is experienced as a great reality. The 
simple trust which is expressed In repentance and confidence brings into 
the soul the Joy, the rest, the wonder, of divine forgiveness; and the ex- 
perience Is one of the absolutely real things In life. This reality amazea 
ua as we attempt to ponder the marvelous love and grace of God in seek- 
ing and finding the lost. Even John Wesley in his theology could not 
help expressing the wonder that "I, even I, am a child of God, that all 
my Bins are blotted out." Many of the finest hymns of the Christian 
Church express this spirit of wonder. As Charles Wesley Bays, "Where 
shall my wondering soul begin?" 

And this real experience provides rest and power: rest as the sou? 
reviews the past, power as It contemplates the future. There is no dyna- 
mic to compare with forgiveness. It setB the soul free from past guilt 
to face present weaknesses and future problems. It provides the soul 
with divine guarantees of holiness that Inevitably bring forth fruit in the 
life; and day by day, an the forgiven soul contemplates Its own standing 
and Its permanent provision In Christ, it can look up to God and say, 
"Forgiven until now." The heart Is "at leisure from itself to soothe 
and sympathize with others, to face temptation, to meet problems, and 
to conBecrate Itself to the service of God. 

If this experience Is not a reality, it must bo because, as Professor 
Clow no suggestively says, "Either God Is not real, or his wrath against 
Bin is not real, or his love Is not real." But those to whom God is not a 



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name, but a reality, will never hesitate to receive and exult in divine 
forgiveness. 

God only asks us to test this for ourselves: to trust his word, to take 
his gift, to test his love, and then to tell of his grace. 

* * * 

In preaching on this subject, Rev. Dr. William M. Taylor used the 
following treatment: 

I. The narrative encourages sinners of every name and degree to 
go at once to Christ. He will in nowise cast them out. There are no 
more touching stories in the Gospels than those which tell how Jesus 
dealt with the most degraded class of sinners. Recall his conversation 
with the woman of Samaria, at the well of Sychar. Bring up before you 
once again that scene at the well of Sychar. Bring up before you, once 
again that scene in the Temple, where the scribes and Pharisees dragged 
in before him the woman who had been taken in the very act of sin. 
Then read anew these narratives, and say if the prophecy regarding him 
was not true, "A bruised reed shall he not break; the smoking flax shall 
he not quench." Where man perceived no promise of success, and would 
have been tempted to give up the individual as hopeless, he would labor 
on uritil the reed which had given forth a note jangled and out of tune 
was restored to its original condition, and gave its own quota to the har- 
mony of Jehovah's praise. 

II. If we would be successful in raising the fallen and reclaiming 
the abandoned, we must be willing to touch them and be touched by them, 
in other words, we must come into warm, loving, personal contact with 
them. What an uplift Christ gave to the soul of this poor woman, when 
he, the pure and holy, let her thus approach him. When the Lord wished 
to save the human race, he touched it by taking on him our nature, with- 
out our nature's pollution. So we must take the nature of the degraded, 
without its impurity, if we would help him. 

III. If we wish to love God much, we must think much of what we 
owe to him. Low views of sin lead to a light estimate of the blessing 
of pardon, and a light estimate of the blessing of pardon will lead to 
but a little love of God. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Christ's Loving Forgiveness (470). 
More than mere forgiveness does he show to the penitent. It is lov- 
ing forgiveness. Mr. Beecher used to talk about what he called "hedge- 
hog forgiveness" the sort that bristles all over with sharp quills to stick 
into the offender. A little fellow who had displeased his sister came to 
her and asked her pardon, but he was not quite satisfied with her for- 
giveness when he got it. "Really and truly, do you forgive me ?" he asked 
anxiously, looking very earnestly into her still grave face. "Yes, yes," 
she answered a little sharply; "didn't I tell you that I forgave you? 
Why do you think I do not mean what I say?" "Cause," he answered, 
sobbing, "'cause you ain't smiling!" Unsmiling forgiveness is far from 
Christlike. Jesus said, "Son — Child." One cannot help feeling how kind 
his face and how tender his tone was. 

The King's Pardon (471). 
A man was once being tried for a crime, the punishment of which 



THE GOSPEL OP ANOTHER CHANCE 



303 



wrb death. The witnesses came in one by one and testified to his guilt; 
but there he stood, quite calm and unmoved. The judge and the jury 
were quite surprised at his indifference; they could not understand how 
he could take such a serious matter so calmly. When the jury retired, it 
did not take them many minutes to decide on a verdict "Guilty;" and 
when the judge was passing the sentence of death upon the criminal, he 
told him how surprised he was that he could be so unmoved in the pros- 
pect of death. When the judge had finished, the man put his hand in his 
bosom, pulled out a document, and walked out of the dock a free man. 
Ah, that was how he could be so calm; it was a free pardon from his 
king, which be had in his pocket all the time. The king had instructed 
him to allow the trial to proceed, and to produce the pardon only when 
he was condemned. No wonder then, that he was indifferent as to the 
result of the trial. Now that is Just what will make us joyful in the 
great day of Judgment; we have got a pardon from the Great King, and 
it is sealed with the blood of his Son. 

"81ns Dragging Me Down" (472). 

She was Just a slender wisp of a girl, about fourteen years old, with 
a quaint English accent in her speech. The special meetings had brought 
her to take a stand for Jesus, and with other young people she presented 
herself to the church for membership. 

Several of the prominent members of the church expressed their 
fears that "the little English girl" ought not to be received into the 
church, since she had been coming to our Sunday School only a few 
weekB, and she didn't come of a very good family, and she was so young 
that perhaps she didn't realize the step she was taking. Her earnestness, 
however, brought her with the others to a conference with the pastor 
and the deacons. In which, in a careful yet sympathetic way, the real 
heart experience of these new disciples was drawn out. It came the 
English girl's turn to tell what brought her to want to be received by the 
church for baptism. It was hardly to be expected that she would give 
as clear and satisfactory a statement of faith as those who had come 
from the homes of our own good church people. But the very first re- 
sponse that she gave seemed to gather the whole matter and crystallize 
It Into a clear and complete view of "the great transaction," Said she, 
"I felt that my sins were dragging me down and that I needed to flee to 
Jesus for help." So simple and yet so sufficient was this that when she 
repeated this same declaration of faith before the church there was a 
unanimous agreement she should be received for baptism. And we felt 
anew the truth of Jesus' word that, "Except ye become converted and 
become as a little child, ye Bhall In no wise enter the kingdom of heaven." 
— Selected. 

The Greatneta of Pardon (473). 
A man who had been a professor of mathematics In a German Uni- 
versity, became a wreck through strong drink. He came to one of Dr. 
Chapman's meetings, forlorn and dejected, and took a seat In the rear 
of the room. Be was converted and became a member of the church. It 
was Dr. Chapman's custom to meet the m^n of his church every Sunday 
morning, for a short conference on the Christian life. "One morning I 



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told them that our sins were taken from us as far as the east is from 
the west," he says in relating the story, "and then, seeing this old pro- 
fessor before me, I said, 'Professor, that is a mathematical proposition 
for you. How far is the distance from east to west?' He reached for his 
pencil and note-hook, when suddenly he stopped and hurst into tears; 
and facing the crowd of men, he said, 'Men, you cannot measure it, for 
if you put your stake here and east be ahead of you and west behind you, 
you can go around the world and come back to your stake and east will 
still be ahead of you and west will still be behind you. The distance is 
immeasurable. And, thank God, that is where my sins have gone!'" — 
J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. 

The Simplicity of Pardon (474). 

Going home one day from church, I encountered an old gentleman 
who looked very unhappy. I said: "My dear friend, you seem not to be 
happy." 

"Oh, no," he replied, "indeed I am not." 

"Why," I continued, "are you not sure of your salvation?" 

"No," he answered, "I am not; and yet I have made it a subject of 
prayer for twenty years." 

"Prayed for it twenty years," I said, "and yet not saved? Then I 
will tell you a story. Some time ago I saw a gentleman who being lame, 
used to be wheeled about in a little carriage. At the corner of a street 
he saw a beggar who was lame and also blind, and who asked alms of him. 
The gentleman offered him a dollar, saying as he held it out to him, 
'Here my friend, is a dollar for you.' Now the poor man was not only 
lame and blind, but partially deaf also; and thus, while the gift was held 
out to him he continued to beg for pennies, until the gentleman caused 
his carriage to be wheeled close to him, and he shouted into his ear, 
'Here Is a dollar for you,' and then he accepted the gift with great joy. 
Is it not the same with you," I said, "dear friend? God has given his 
own Son. He offers you forgiveness of sins, but you keep praying for 
that very thing." 

"What," answered he, "can I be saved in so simple a way?" 

"Certainly," I replied. "The gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 
saved. Whosoever believeth in him hath everlasting life." 

Is there not many a burdened soul which has gone sorrowing and 
doubting for many years, and whose only need is to grasp the meaning 
of Christ's precious words, "Only believe?" — Words and Weapons. 

The Peace That Accompanies Forgiveness (475). 

"Oh, now I see it," he exclaimed, and he went on his way rejoicing. 

The purely material things of life are not the great essentials of 
happiness; they are capable of adding wonderfully to the joys of life, but 
they cannot assure a single happy hour unless there is peace in the heart. 
Where wrong has been done, forgiveness is the first condition of happi- 
ness — not because punishment is feared, but because God has written a 
law in our natures which makes it simply impossible that there be peace 
without forgiveness, unless conscience be absolutely dead. We feel it in 
our dealings with our friends. We feel it still more in the sweet and 



THE GOSPEL OF ANOTHER CHANCE 



305 



precious fellowship of the home. A wrong is done, and every kindly act, 
every loving word from the one we have wronged, seems like a coal of 
fire. The loved one is the same, but we are changed. Then we seek 
forgiveness, and when it is freely granted, joy returns. We can face 
the world again; there is nothing more to hide. We are reconciled, that 
Is the central thought, and we go on with fresh courage for the future. 
Yet we see that all is not just as it was before. Our act can never be 
recalled, and all its consequences cannot be effaced. Forgiveness does 
not mean that a miracle is wrought. And we need to learn the lesson, 
and, as a writer has put it in a popular novel of the day, "repent before 
the deed is done!" Repentance and forgiveness may bring back friend- 
ship and trust, but they cannot change the past, or always, or at once, 
win back the confidence of the world. They cannot undo all the evil that 
has been done. The wasted fortune, the shattered health, the ruined 
reputation, the wrong to others, all stand unchanged. These consequences 
must be borne. Not even God's forgiveness alters that. What is done 
is to put the one forgiven in the way of gradual winning back what is 
lost, and making good, as far as possible, the injury of the wrong. But 
the guilt is remitted, and the peace of true forgiveness fills the heart. — 
Lutheran Observer. 



LXIII. THE UNTROUBLED HEART OF 
TRUST. 

"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe In God, believe also In me." — 
John 14:1. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

In emphasizing the Christian's possibility of trust in the midst of 
troubles, Dr. Grey said: The child-heart throbbing in the breast of the 
believer cries, "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor 
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to 
separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus my Lord." We 
are sure of all that we need, of all that infinite Wisdom sees that it is best 
for us to have, because infinite Love is on the throne of the universe. 

I. The trouble with many Christians is that, having settled the great 
fact of consciousness that they do love God, and having accepted the logi- 
cal conclusions from this fact, viz: that God loves them, and that loving 
them he must make all things work together for their good, they want 
to go on and know all about the "all things." They ask, If God really 
loves me why does he afflict me, or why does he refuse to give me what 
I ask for? They forget that the child cannot understand all that the 
father does — that what seems cruel to the child may be prompted by the 
truest and most self-sacrificing affection. God sends us two answers that 
ought to satisfy us. First he tells us that he doth not willingly afflict, 
but that these light afflictions shall work out for us a far more exceeding 
and eternal weight of glory; and second, he says, "What I do thou know- 
est not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." The mysteries that now 
we strain In vain to comprehend will all be clear and luminous when we 
stand In the light of God. 

II. Then let us be satisfied with what we can know and do know. If we 
are sure of the lovo of God, we are sure that all things shall work to- 
gether for our good. 

Fear thou not, for I am with thee; look not around thee, for I am 
thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold 
thee with the right hand of my righteousness. — Isa. 41:10, mar. 

* » * 

Rev. J. H. Jowett said: Now if we are to trust the Lord, our concep- 
tion of him must be such as will breed a fruitful faith. I took up Luther 
on Galatlans the other day, and as I turned the pages I came upon this 
heading to one of the chapters: "A rule to be observed, that men ought 
to abstain from the curious searching of God's majesty." I read this sec- 
tion of the great exposition with eager Interest, and I found this further 
counsel: "Thou must withdraw thy mind wholly from all cogitation and 
searching of the majesty of God and look only on this man Jesus Christ." 

This In fact Is all we need to know — our God as revealed In our 
Lord; the light tempered to the eye, the thunder to the ear, the glory 
softened Into grace. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Well 
then, let me gaze upon the life of Jesus. Let me follow him reverently 



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as he speaks and moves alftng his way. Let me walk with him from 
Bethlehem to Calvary. Let me accompany him by lake and over moun- 
tain. Let me be with him at the marriage and at the funeral. Let me 
eee him among little children and in the presence of the leper. Let me 
have fellowship with him in Bethany, in Gethsemane and at the cross. 

And when I go into the later scenes where darkness gathers, let me 
have Paul as my interpreter of all that is happening, and when the jour- 
ney is completed let the great apostle make known to me that this same 
Jesus is now enthroned in glory. And let me ask myself, Can I trust 
him? Can I risk my life upon him? Can I commit my all to him? Can 
I say, "Thou, O Christ, art all I want?" Can I lay my crown at his feet 
and intrust my soul to him for time and eternity? 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
The True Sight (476). 

There is much sorrow which would instantly be turned to joy if those 
who weep could see things as they really are. The loss of a friend is 
grieved over, but if we could follow the friend into the glory of heaven 
we should rejoice. The things we think are calamities and causes for 
sorrow, if we could see them as God sees them, would appear to be bless- 
ings. If Mary had found the body of Jesus in the tomb as she expected 
to do, it would have been cause for grief. The empty tomb at which 
she grieved was the reason for the world's hope. Mary did not recognize 
Jesus. How needless her sorrow was, for, if she had known him, joy 
would have filled her heart! Is it otherwise with us in our times of fear? 
Jesus is beside us, even speaking to us, but we do not know it is he, nor 
do we hear his words of comfort. We grieve and let ourselves be crushed 
by our sorrows, not knowing that the sorrow is only the shadow of a 
great joy, and that what seems to us emptiness and loss is really the 
blessedness of heaven. — Evening Thoughts. 

The Faith of a Little Child (477). 

A little, golden-haired, blue-eyed boy was beloved by his father, who 
ever watched over him with the tenderest care, and knew that his beloved 
son must undergo some'months of suffering and discomfort in order that 
when he grew up his body should become strong, and that he should be 
capable of entering into and enjoying the pleasures life might have in 
store for him. 

The father had placed him under the care of a doctor who had kept 
him lying on his back with his little legs in splints. The treatment gave 
him much pain at times, and the little sufferer, while lying on his couch, 
would puzzle his head as to why his father should leave him thus in the 
house of a stranger, and allow him to undergo all this pain and discom- 
fort. 

Then thoughts would arise in his mind which induced him to question 
whether his father did really care for him, and if he did, what reason 
could he have for allowing him to be made to lie on his back all day 
with his legs in those horrid splints? 

These thoughts, however, he was quick to banish, for as he looked 
back he remembered all the loving care which had been bestowed upon 
him by his father, and the many and various acts of kindness he had 



THE UNTROUBLED HEART OF TRUST 



309 



received from him; and thus he hrought himself to feel sure that his 
father must have some good reason in sending him away from home, and 
in permitting him to undergo this treatment. 

And he determined to be patient, and cease questioning, and wait 
quietly until his father should come and take him back to his home again. 

Surely then we of larger growth should learn to have the faith of 
this little child, and feel convinced that when our Heavenly Father sees 
fit for us to have pain and suffering it is for some wise and beneficent 
purpose, and sent for our ultimate good. 

Could we but bring ourselves to view things in this spirit, It would 
help ub to better understand the mystery of pain. As the earthly father 
knew what was essential for his child'B welfare when he grew up, so 
should we feel certain that our Heavenly Father knows what is best for 
his creatures, and instead of losing heart and murmuring at our fate, we 
6hould strive to acquire the simple faith of a little child. — Great Thoughts. 

Trusting In Trouble (478). 
Since 1883 I have been consciously trying to sail on the ocean of 
life bo as to keep ever heading towards that haven, which something 
within assures me exists beyond the "bound of time and space. God 
knows it has not been all calm seas and 6unny skies on the voyage, there 
have been head-winds and fogs and ice. Yes, there have been also shoals 
and reefs and storms. All have had their share in forming the devious 
wake the years have left behind me. Think what the chart of life has 
meant, still means, must ever mean to me. It seems to me it must mean 
just the same to any man faring forth on the same venture. Its incon- 
ceivable value will only fade when t have crossed the last bar and met 
my Pilot face to face.— Wilfred T. Grenfell. 

Courage and Calmness Through Confidence (479). 

People, as well as gardens, get too crowded. One thing chokes out 
another In our lives, and too often it is the best that gets choked out. 
We are living so fast, we havo so much to do, so many Interests! As 
some one, feeling the disadvantage of tills hurry, said: "I am in danger 
of being Jostled out of my spirituality." It is a real danger, and one that 
threatens us all In our rushing life, In these days. Cares, worries, dis- 
tractions, ser-m to ktow In our hearts as naturally as weedB In a garden. 
Some people think worries quite harmless, but Christ spoke very strongly 
against thorn as most potent for evil In our lives, in the way of crowding 
out the good. He warned us Btrongly against all anxiety. Ho said plainly 
that It can add nothing to our Btature, possessions or success, but. In- 
stead, does us harm and grieves our heavenly Father, who all the while 
Is caring for us. 

There are two things, at least, about which wo should never worry. 
First, the things wo can't help. If we can't help them, worrying Is cer- 
tainly most foolish and useless. Secondly, the things we can help. If 
we can help them, let us set about It. and not weaken our powers by 
worry. Weed your garden. Pluck up the smallest rootB of worry. Yes, 
watch for their first appearanco above the ground, and pluck them whilo 
they are small. Do not let them get a start, or they will crowd out all 
the beautiful things that ought to grow In your hearts. 



» 



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Unshaken (480). 

I am determined, God helping me, that no man shall rob me of my 
faith. I won't hide it away. I'll keep it right around with me, if I can. 
I will see it gets exercise. I will feed it all I can, so that it shall not 
starve. I won't force it if I can avoid it, and make it weedy and weak- 
ling. It shall say no things it does not believe. When in real danger, 
If I can, I will go to some one stronger than I to help to .keep it safe. 
But when that necessity arises to whom shall I look for help? Surely 
directly to him who I believe gave It to me. For I know whom I have 
trusted, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep it against that day. — 
Dr. W. T. Grenfell. 

Trust and Be Glad (482). 

Be patient, keep sweet. Do not fret or worry. Do your best and leave 
results with God. Believe firmly in God, in the fulfillment of his purposes 
and in the march of his providences. God's laws are immutable, and 
work with undeviating regularity. Walk in fellowship with God, and 
every year you will be a stronger, better, happier, and sweeter man. 
Do not mar your peace or power by needless worry. Live by faith in 
the Son of God, who loves you and gave himself for you. On some bright 
tomorrow you will come to anchor under a haven of sapphire and a 
harbor of calm, with chimes ringing their welcome from the spires that 
sentinel the city of God, while from the battlements millions will shout, 
"Well done!" while God himself will say, "Enter thou into the joy of the 
Lord." — George B. Vosburgh. 

The Christian Way to Live (483). 

Many people have a strangely perverted faculty of exaggerating their 
mole hills of trouble into mountains, and then of looking at their bless- 
ings through diminishing lenses. A cheerful heart always finds bright- 
ness, while an unhappy spirit sees nothing but discouragement in even 
the most favorable conditions. One person is happy in the narrowest 
circumstances, while another is wretched in a luxuriant home with every 
want supplied. Some persons never see anything to be thankful for. 
They may attend a service of praise on Thanksgiving Day; but they are 
not in a joyful mood, and not the first strain of thanksgiving rises from 
their hearts. They never stop complaining long enough to allow a grate- 
ful thought to nest in their hearts. They keep themselves always in 
such a mood of discontent that no note of praise is ever heard from their 
lips. One would think, to hear them talk about their trials, that God 
does not love them, and that no favor ever comes into their lives. Yet 
really they do not have any more than their share of human suffering, 
while they certainly have a full portion of blessing and good. 

But this is not the way for a Christian to live. We dishonor God 
when we indulge in unhappiness and refuse to be grateful. We spoil 
our own lives and make existence wretched for ourselves when we 
insist on seeing only the black. Then we make it harder for others to 
live, casting the burden of our gloom upon them. We should train 
ourselves just as carefully and conscientiously to be thankful and song- 
ful as we do to be truthful, honest, kind, or thoughtful. — Rev. J, R, Mil- 
ler, D.D. 



LXIV. OUR DIVINE GUIDE. 



"But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send 

In my name, he shall teach you all things." — John 14:26. 
"He will guide you into all truth." — John 16:13. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

This supremely important topic was presented along the following 
lines of cleavage by Rev. J. Otis Barrows, D.D.: 

L He is the spirit of holiness. His name is the Holy Spirit. This 
is his one comprehensive attribute, holiness. And when he works through 
men, or with men, he dwells in their hearts. "Know ye not that your 
body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" exclaims the apostle. And he 
very positively declares, too, that the temple of God is holy. In the gen- 
eral thought of mankind a temple is a holy place. They may ignorantly 
pollute it, and still in their thoughts some idea of sanctity is attached 
to 1L This idea reached its extreme limit in the case of the Jews. How 
sacred was their temple! Paul uses this figure of the temple, so Impres- 
sive to the Jew, to set forth the absolute necessity for purity in the place 
where the Spirit of God is to dwell and do his work. How then can the 
Christian who does not strive for the utmost purity of heart and life ask 
God to make him instrumental in accomplishing the work of human sal- 
vation? 

II. But the Spirit of God is also the Spirit of truth. "When he, the 
Spirit of truth, is come," said Jesus. Doubtless working in harmony 
with the Spirit of God, enables one to come to a more correct knowledge 
of scientific truth, and a true theology without the Inspiring indwelling 
of the Holy SplriL seems to be an absurdity; but what we need to notice 
here Ik truth inwrought into the life — that which is essential in the bring- 
ing of the soul practically into right relations to God. If there be any- 
thing in the inmost workings and ways of the heart which is not perfectly 
frank, clear and truthful, how can there be union with the Spirit of God? 

m, But again the Spirit of God is characterized as the working 
Spirit. Paul says, "but all these worketh that one and the self-Bame 
Spirit." The Holy Spirit is everywhere in the Scriptures represented as 
energizing. In his mighty working his activity is Incessant. Is it possible 
that the Christian should be of any use who finds nothing to do? In- 
cessant earnest work Is necessary to bring us Into harmony with the 
everworklng Spirit. Whon the apoBtles waited in Jerusalem until endued 
with power, what waB the power for? Wo learn from the book of the 
Acts of the Apostles. 

IV. But the Spirit of God is also the Spirit of supplication. "Tho 
Spirit himself maketh intercession for iib with groanings which cannot 
be uttered." A yearning and an outgoing of desire so intense that It 
cannot find expression in language! How are we in sympathy with the 
Spirit of God. if we do not pray earnestly, even with the deepest feeling 
of which our souls are capable, that the unsaved may yet find mercy? 
A Christian who does not pray, or only prnya for himself, how far Is he 
from any real union with tho Holy Spirit In his work? 



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V. But further the Spirit of God is declared to he the Spirit of 
harmony. "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body," says 
the inspired writer. If we would be one with the Spirit of God in saving 
man, how completely must all bitterness, jealousy, anger, and strife be 
put away. Let him who cherishes an unforgiving spirit at once abandon 
all hope of doing anything in furtherance of the work of God who so 
loves us in our sin, that his prayer for us is, in intensity and earnestness, 
something that we are unable to comprehend. The forgiving love of 
Jesus is the love of the Spirit also. If we have no share with him in 
this, neither can we have any share with him in his work. 

* * * 

Rev. J. H. Jowett, D.D., said: 

I. The Holy Spirit is the minister of enlightenment. He illumines 
the judgment and fashions our decisions. He opens up buried difficulties 
and reveals things that have been hid. He unfolds visions of glory and 
throws heavenly radiance upon the common road. There are three pas- 
sages in the New Testament where this gracious ministry is expressed. 
The first is this: "God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit." The 
significance of the word "revealed" is to uncover, to make manifest 
things that are hid. And this may be done in other ways than by throw- 
ing a light upon them. We could disclose a buried world to a man by 
endowing him with a new sense. Let a deaf man go into the woods at 
the break of day when the birds are waking and beginning to sing. That 
world of melody is then to him as though it did not exist. And the way 
to reveal it is by endowing the man with the sense of hearing. 

Or let a man devoid of the sense of smell wander over the moor, 
fragrant with the bog-myrtle and the heather. All these fragrances are 
to him an unknown world, and the way to reveal them is by endowing 
him with the sense he lacks. Or let a man go into an orchard abound- 
ing In fruit trees, laden with rich varieties of fruit. Let him have no 
sense of taste and all the delicacies of the orchards are hidden and un- 
known. Give him a refined and sensitive palate and we reveal to him a 
new world. 

Now our Lord speaks of "the things which he hath prepared for them 
that love him." It is suggestive of a feast, where all manner of spiritual 
delights and delicacies are to be found. But the natural man is devoid 
of the requisite sense and he cannot receive and appreciate them. But 
the Holy Spirit reveals them unto us by endowing us with the taste ws 
need. He gives us a taste for the Lord's fellowship. We cannot work 
ourselves up to this mood of appreciation. Common culture cannot give 
it. It is a gift of the Spirit. The progress of a saint may be measured 
by the delicacy of his taste and the refinement of his appreciations. 

II. And the Holy Spirit also gives us a taste for the King's will. "O 
how love I thy law!" "I delight to do thy will." "Sweeter to me than 
honey and the honeycomb." And our Lord himself when on earth spoke 
of the strong, sweet nutriment he found in his holy obedience. "My meat 
is to do the will of him that sent me." The Holy Spirit is the appointed 
minister of grace to give us this spiritual apprehension. He will make 
us to drink of "the river of God's pleasures." He will bring our tastes 
into kinship with the tastes of Christ. 



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ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
The Gift of Tongues (484). 
When a man has opened himself to the Inbreathings of the divine 
Spirit, when he begins to know by sweet and wonderful consciousness 
that Christ is in him, when the grand liberty of the sons of God has 
broken the shackles from his soul, then does he not begin to speak with 
new and other tongues? With the tongue of a deep personal experience, 
with the tongue of joy, with the tongue of triumph — with such new 
tongues he does begin to speak. In this meaning the gift of the tongues 
remainB. — Wayland Hoyt, D.D. 

Spirit's Power Necessary (485). 

Recently, I visited Fort Monroe and was taken through those Inter- 
esting barracks. An officer pointing out a great gun said to me: "With 
that we could tear to pieces yonder wall of stone and destroy many 
lives thousands of yards away." A friend standing near said: "Not so; 
that gun itself Is powerless." "Oh," the officer exclaimed, "of course 
we must first place the powder and the shell in it, and then the disas- 
trous work will be done." The reply was made: "All of your guns and 
powder and shell are absolutely powerless to make any Impression In 
themselves. There is one thing lacking." "Yes," he said, "but a spark 
of fire would hurl forth the missile of death and bring about the great 
destruction." We may have big guns in the pulpit, and In the pew, we 
may have the finest machinery and external equipment; but unless we 
have the fire of the Spirit we can never shatter the strongholds of Satan 
and bring In the reign of our Spiritual King. — H. Allen Tupper. 

The Gift of the Spirit (486). 

And the distinguishing feature of this gift of the Spirit Is that It Is 
always ethical In Its working. Too frequently the program of ecstasies, 
raptures, voices, has summed up our thought in the matter. But the 
gift of the Holy Spirit demands a spirit of righteousness in us. The fruit 
of Its working Is also ethical. There was Barnabas, of whom It was 
said, "He was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost" Everything else 
said of this man In the New Testament is of a practical and ethical char- 
acter. We find In him, therefore, a good biblical definition of what it la 
to be "full of the Holy Ghost." A modern case Is to be found in the life 
of the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. The Duke of Argyle said of this 
Christian: "All the great reforms of the past fifty years have been 
brought about, not by the Liberal Party, nor by the Tory Party, but by 
the labors of one man — the Earl of Shaftesbury." — Selected. 

Power (487). 

We can hardly Imagine one so foolish as to attempt to run heavy 
machinery by hand when wires but await connection to convey the Irre- 
sistible electric current from the dynamos of the great power house, but 
most people are living In Just such a neglectful, shortsighted way. What 
an Inspiration it Is to meet the men and women whose lives are filled 
with divine power and love and passion for serving and who are doing 
the great and transforming work of the world! — Selected. 



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Our Entire Dependence on Him (488). 

On Sunday, March 6th, 1881, a barque was wrecked off the north 
coast of Scotland. Fishermen on shore made several vain attempts to 
get a line on board by means of the rockets, but the wind was too strong. 
They succeeded at last, however, by using an empty barrel. There were 
eleven men on board, but only four or five were able to do anything, 
the remainder being helpless from the cold. As soon as the apparatus 
was in working order for the traveling cage which was to be drawn along 
the rope, one young sailor was put into it, and a few minutes found 
him on shore in the hands of kind friends. 

This first man was scarcely saved, when, through the tide and the 
wind, the ship was swung round among the rocks, and the traveling appa- 
ratus becoming entangled across her bow, was rendered unmanageable. 

Then we saw through the drifting snow a man descend from the 
vessel, and try to save himself by coming along the rope hand over hand, 
but alas, such an attempt was evidently useless. The waves were beat- 
ing over him like falling houses, and the poor fellow had gone but a little 
distance from the ship, when the heavy seas swept over him and in a 
few seconds he dropped into the surging waves. A few moments after 
this, the bow of the ship lifted again over the rocks and soon the appa- 
ratus was disentangled, and again workable, and all of the others were 
safely brought to shore. We asked the captain about the lost man. He 
said, "We tried to persuade him not to attempt such a useless task, as it 
would be impossible for him to reach the shore in that way, but he 
would not listen to us. A fine fellow he was," added the captain, "the 
best man in the crew; but he was lost, because he tried to save himself 
in his own way." Yes, all the rest were saved, but by other hands than 
their own. 

Human powers are wholly inadequate for human needs. To rely 
upon them is to invite and Insure spiritual disaster. 

But divine resources are amply sufficient, and these divine resources 
— the power of an indwelling Christ — are ours for the taking. — J. H. Tre- 
mont, D.D. 

The Breath of God (489). 

But when the breath comes, how then? The breath of God converts 
an organization into an organism, it transforms a combination into a fel- 
lowship, a congregation into a church, a mob into an army. That breath 
came into a little disciple-band, a band that was worm-eaten by envy 
and jealousy, and weakened by timidity and fear, and it changed it into 
a spiritual army that could not be checked or hindered by "the world, 
the flesh, and the devil." And when the same breath of God comes into 
a man of many faculties and talents, sharpened by culture, drilled and 
organized by discipline, it endows him with the veritable power of an 
army and makes him irresistible. "And Peter, filled with the holy breath!" 
How can we compute the value and significance and the power of that 
unifying association? Peter himself becomes an army, "an army of the 
living God." If the church were filled with men of such glorious spiritual 
endowment, what would be the tale of exploits, what new chapters would 
be added to the Acts of the Apostles? — "Things that Matter Most," by 
J. H. Jowett, D.D. 



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316 



Weak Without the Spirit (490). 
"Why has your church lost the enthusiasm for souls that character- 
ized it In the early centuries, when its members were everywhere active 
in telling men of Christ?" L. D. Wishard asked an Armenian priest in 
Turkey. "We are not an educated people," was the reply. "What evi- 
dence have we that the early witnesses who were so successful were edu- 
cated men?" again asked Mr. Wishard. "We have no railroad facilities 
such as you have In America, and bo are handicapped in our work," the 
priest returned, shifting his ground. "What railroads did they have In 
the first century?" persisted Mr. Wishard. "Ah, brother, those men had 
a relation with God and the Holy Spirit which we do not have," then re- 
plied the priest. — Augsburg Teacher. 

Indwelling (491). 

The wonder is that God is willing to live in lives like ours. But 
this was the glory of the creation and it is the miracle of the incarnation. 
Into our human life, into our human hearts, one by one, God condescends 
to come. There could not be any marvel greater than this, except the 
marvel of our blindness and wickedness in keeping out what is so ready 
to come in. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my 
voice and open the door, I will come into him." This is the richest offer 
that can be made to life. Into the poor shack of manhood, decrepit and 
unsightly at its best when untenanted by God, God's Spirit offers to come 
to make It great and glorious and to flood it with beauty and peace. Oh, 
let us open wide to the inpouring of that which makes of each of us a 
temple of the divine. — Selected. — Selected. 

Enduement (492). 
The Holy Spirit quickens the utterance; he unlooses the tongue, and 
we speak with a tongue of fire. Our speech is "not with enticing words of 
man's wisdom, but In demonstration of the Spirit and of power." Here 
Is the secret of power in service. The Lord bade the disciples tarry 
"until they were endued with power from on high;" and they were to be 
"witnesses" unto him. This is the grandest result of being filled with the 
Holy Ghost — we are qualified to be his witnesses. The secret of power 
In winning souls Is not Intellect, learning, culture, human eloquence — It is 
simply and solely the Holy Spirit. A supernatural gospel must be accom- 
panied with a supernatural energy, and then It overcomes the natural 
heart. All our preaching and toachlng, even thouRh It be of the truth of 
God, Is but as sounding brass till God's Spirit puts a divine soul into the 
utterance. Then we may speak with an unKrammatlcal, uncultured 
tongue; but the power of God will go with It. — Arthur T. Plerson, D.D. 



LXV. THE LIFE OF ABIDING. 



"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abldeth In me, and I In him, 
the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do noth- 
ing."— John 15:5. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. J. F. JenneBs presented this truth in the following forcible way: 
How often have I joined with others in singing, "What a friend we have 
In Jesus," or, "There's not a friend like the lowly Jesus!" How eagerly 
have I read the passages in the Bible which remind me of his friendship 
for the sinner, or of his proposal to take his disciples into that dear re- 
lationship with himself, calling them no more servants, but friends! How 
my heart has burned within me as I have meditated upon the great privi- 
lege of having the Son of God for my friend! How glad I am when the 
opportunities come to give testimony to the loyalty of the friendship 
of Jesus! 

But how about the other side of the compact? I. If I accept his 
friendship, with all Its benefits, does he not expect me to show some 
proof of my friendship for him? Does Jesus want to have me as his 
friend? Is there any sense in which he needs the help which my poor 
friendship brings? 

When he was on earth, JesuB gave evidence of his desire for human 
friendship. There were certain ones whom he called to be his discipl«s, 
but he also said to them, "Ye are my friends." His purpose In calling 
them waB not only that he might show his friendship for them by becom- 
ing their teacher and guide; he needed their friendship and the Inspira- 
tion and help which true friendship brings. 

Jesus loved to be with his friends at Bethany! When the day's work 
In Jerusalem was over, gladly his feet turned toward the little village 
where Lazarus and Martha and Mary were waiting with friendship's wel- 
come. 

John responded more readily and more fully to his Master's need for 
friendship than did the others of his daily company. Hence he was called 
"the disciple whom JesuB loved." Friendship understands without the 
need of wordy explanations. The sadness of the misunderstood was In 
the heart of Jesus when he said to one of those who should have under- 
stood him best, "Have I been bo long time with you, and dost thou not 
know me, Philip?" 

Jesus wants to have friends In the world today, and he has shown 
what tests of friendship he expects his disciples to meet. "Ye are my 
friends If ye do the things which I command you." Friendship may be 
expressed In words, but It Is proved only by loyalty In conduct. "Not every 
one that salth unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter Into the kingdom of 
heaven, but ho that doeth the will of my Father which Is In heaven." 

IF. Friendship has lovo bh Its foundation, and "love Is the giving away 
of self. In this Jesus has met the test. He literally gave himself away for 
the sake of those to whom he would prove hlH friendship. He gave him- 
self In service for thoso who were needy, and men began to say, "Behold 



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a friend of sinners." His very life he gave in proof of his love. "Greater 
love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." 
"But God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet 
sinners, Christ died for us." Surely such love demands some return. The 
question which the song writer puts into the lips of Jesus is a pertinent 
one: 

I gave, I gave my life for thee, 
What hast thou given for me? 

III. If I am a friend of Jesus, that fact will make It possible for me 
to render efficient service to those about me who are in need of him. A 
Christian woman was trying to lead to Christ a girl who had wandered 
far in the ways of sin, pleading with her to come back to her mother's 
God and seek pardon and peace through Christ. Suddenly the girl turned 
and asked: 

"And have you been to him?" 

"Yes, indeed, I have." 

"And has he given you rest?" 

"He has, O, thank God, he has I He is my Saviour and Mend." 

"Then take me with you. It would be easier to go with one who has 
been there before." 

If I am a friend of Jesus, I can take my friends to him. If I am hia 
friend, I can lift him up, and he has promised that if he is lifted up, he 
will draw all men unto himself. When I remember how many there are in 
the circles in which my life is lived who have need of him, and that he 
expects me to make him known to them, I am constrained to show by 
every possible word and deed that I am his friend. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. Alexander Maclaren in preaching on this theme said: I 
am afraid that very few so-called Christian people habitually feel, as 
they might do, the depths and blessedness of this abiding. And sure I 
am that only a very small percentage of us have anything like the con- 
tinuity of companionship which is possible. There may be, and therefore 
there should be, running unbroken through a Christian life, one long, 
bright line of communion with Christ and happy inspiration from the 
sense of his presence with us. Is it a line in my life, or is there but a 
dot here and a dot there, and long breaks between? 

The long, embarrassed pauses in a conversation between two who do 
not know much of, or care much for, each other are only too like what 
occurs in many professing Christians' intercourse with Christ. Their 
communion is like those time-worn inscriptions that archaeologists dig up, 
with a word clearly cut and then a great gap, and then a letter or two 
and then another gap, and then a little bit more legible, and then the 
stone broken, and all the rest gone. 

Did you ever read the meteorological reports in the newspapers and 
observe a record like this: "Twenty minutes' sunshine out of a possible 
eight hours?" Do you not think that such a state of affairs Is a little 
like the experience of a great many Christian people in regard to their 
fellowship with Christ? It is broken at the best, and imperfect at the 
completest, and shallow at the deepest. O dear brethren, rise to the 



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319 



height of your possibilities, and live as close to Christ as he lets you live, 
and nothing will much trouble you! 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Stayed on Christ (493). 
Mr. Gladstone had, for forty years, on the wall of his bedroom thli 
text: "Thou wilt keep him In perfect peace whose mind is stayed on 
thee." These were the first words on which the great statesman^ eyes 
opened every morning, and they were one of the sourceB of his calm 
strength. — Sunday School Chronicle. 

Abiding In Christ (494). 

One afternoon, In an Inland city In China, feeling almost in spiritual 
despair, I was reading the sixth chapter of St. John and came across a 
verse which struck me as It had never done before. "He that eateth 
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth In me, and I in him." Reading 
it in the original, my mind was carried on by the verb from the sixth 
to the fifteenth chapter and I saw at once — why! here is a little light 
on this great and difficult problem. I have evidently been making a mis- 
take about this subject of "abiding In Christ." 

I had thought that abiding In Christ meant keeping our hearts so 
fixed upon Christ, bo constantly meditating upon him and dwelling In 
him, that we never lose the consciousness of his presence. Now what I 
thought was abiding I have since seen was feeding upon Christ. Feeding 
Is a voluntary act We go to the table and sit down arid partake of what 
la there. That la a voluntary act. But the man who wanted to feed all 
day, and to feed all the night too, wouldn't be a desirable member of any 
community. That was what I was trying to do, and because I could not 
manage it, I would get Into a sort of almost religious dyspepsia. 

I had a little hospital and dispensary work that kept me busy. Per- 
haps a man would be brought into the place with an artery cut and In 
Imminent danger; within half an hour the question whether he would 
live or die would be settled, and one's whole attention would be wrapped 
up In the patient, and one would- not think of anything else until the re- 
sult was known; and then the thought would steal over me, "Why for 
two hours I haven't thought about Jesus,'' and I would go off into my 
closet almost In despair and confess this sin. I was In great distress 
Indeed. I wanted to be feeding at the table all the time. Now if a man 
has two or three square meals every day, and perhaps a lunch or two 
between, he ought to be able to go to work. 

Abiding In Jesus is not fixing our attention on Christ, hut it Is being 
one with him. And It doesn't make any difference what we are doing 
or whether we are asleep or awake. A man Is abiding Just as much when 
he Is Bleeping for Jesus as when he Is awake and working for JesuB. O, 
It Is a very sweet thing to have one's mind just resting there! — Rev. J. 
Hudson Taylor. 

Strength Through Abiding (495). 
Dr. Jowett spends two hours every morning in prayer and fellowship 
with Christ. No wonder people "hoar him gladly." Horace Bushnell 
passed from experience to experience until for him the Indwelling Christ 



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became the theme and inspiration of his preaching. The nearness of 
Christ laid hold of him. "Daily we Sinais climb and know it not." Dwight 
L. Moody lived in conscious constant partnership with God. "If God be 
your partner make your plans large," he wrote on the margin of his 
Bible. George Mueller lived in constant realization of the promise, "Ask 
and ye shall receive," because he buried self in asking. 

To fellowship with Christ and watch with him does not mean always 
that we make a set hour be his; all might not choose that way. He can 
be yours at your toil. As you run your lathe, as you drive your team, aa 
you sew a garment, or rock a child to sleep, his name may be on your 
forehead, ay, graven upon your heart, his song may be on your lips, your 
heart be "singing all the time." 

The Christ Within (497). 

If Christ be in you, living, reigning there absolutely, and you are 
obeying him, that fact will be evident. You cannot hide Christ if once he 
comes within. If the light be there, it simply must shine. There is no 
such thing as long-continued secret discipleship. Nicodemus will be a 
secret disciple, and so will Joseph of Arimathaea, but when the crisis 
comes, and all the rest have run away, they will beg the Master's body, 
and bear it tenderly to the burial. — Rev. G. Campbell Morgan. 

Surrender and Gain (498). 
"I gave tip all for him," said John Calvin, "and what have I found? 
I have found everything in him." Having Christ, being in him, we need 
no more. The heart knows its possession, and that is enough. 

The Great Companion (499). 
A happy Christian one day met an Irish peddler, and exclaimed: 
"It's a grand thing to be saved." "Eh?" said the peddler; "it is, but I 
know something better than that." "Better than being saved?" said he. 
"What can you possibly know better than that?" "The companionship of 
the Man who has saved me!" was the unexpected reply. — Selected. 

Rest and Recuperation in Christ (500). 

The wires get tired, the telegraph operators tell us, and they say that 
after a wire has been constantly in use, transmitting messages for a 
long time, it needs rest. After that, they go ahead again and do their 
work far better. And there is a belief, pretty well founded, that other 
things than telegraph wires need a day of rest now and then. Barbers 
think their razors work better after they have been laid aside for a while. 
Automobiles kept all the time in use, tire so that they do not obey the 
commands of the driver as they once did. 

And how tired these old bodies of ours do get sometimes! Day after 
day in these strenuous times we fairly long for a moment when we can 
just lay our heads down close to the bosom of old Mother Earth and be 
still. After such a time of resting we go back strong to do the work that 
comes to us. 

But the sorest weariness is that which comes to the heart. The days 
have been so hard! Things have come to try us as we never were tried 
before. Passion's hot tide has swept over us, and we are conscious that 



THE LIFE OF ABIDING 



321 



somehow the current of power is weak within us. What shall we do 
now? 

What but creep away from the world and its glare and glitter and 
be alone with Christ. — Selected. 

Keeping One's Life In Tune (501). 

Pianos have to be kept in tune. Every now and then the tuner comes 
and goes over all the strings, keying them up so that there will be no 
discords when the instrument is played. Our lives have a great many 
more strings than a piano and more easily get out of tune. Then they 
begin to make discords and the music is spoiled. We need to watch 
them carefully; to keep their strings always up to concert pitch. 

One way in which a piano is put out of tune is by use. The con- 
stant striking of the strings stretches them and they need to be keyed 
up from time to time. Life's common experiences have an exhausting 
effect. It is said of Jesus that "virtue went out of him" as he went about 
healing those who were sick. Virtue always goes out of us as we work, 
as we sympathize with our pain or sorrow, as we minister to others, as 
we strive and struggle. Duty drains our life fountains. We need to come 
into his presence to be spiritually renewed. The other day a young 
woman whose work is very hard, with long hours and incessant pressure, 
took a little time from her noon hour to call upon an older friend, say- 
ing: "I felt that if I could see you for five minutes, to get an encourag- 
ing word, I could get through the afternoon better." What is true of a 
human friend is true yet more of God. If we can get a little while with 
him when we are weary, when our strength is running low, our life will 
be put in tune so that the music will be sweet again. We can not afford 
to live a day without communion with Christ, to get his strength, Joy and 
peace into our hearts. 

Henry Ward Beecher tells of visiting a painter. "I saw on his table 
some higb-colored stones, and I asked him what they were for. He said 
they were to keep his eye up to tone. When he was working in pigments, 
Insensibly his sense of color was weakened, and by having a pure color 
near him he brought It up again, Just as the musician by his test fork 
brings himself up to the right pitch. Now every day men need to have a 
sense of the Invisible God. No naturn is of such magnitude that It does 
not need dally to be tuned, chorded, borne up to the idea of a pure and 
lofty life— J. R. Miller, D.D. 



LXVI. THE CONQUEST OF ADVERSITY. 



"In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer: 1 have 
overcome the world." — John 16:33. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Andrew A. Bonar, D.D., comments as follows: With what frank- 
ness Christ tells that the vessel of the Church shall not move over smooth 
seas, with favoring breezes filling her sails till she reaches the desired 
haven. No, not thus, but on the contrary, wind and wave shall often 
threaten shipwreck and disaster, though all be well at last. Listen 
to these words of the Lord Jesus, you who, like Baruch, Jer. xlv. 3, are 
moaning, "Woe Is me now, for the Lord hath added grief to my sorrow!" 
Listen to the Lord's words you who, like David, are saying, "I shall one 
day perish by the hand of Saul!" 

Perhaps your desponding heart replies, "ThlB is tantalizing me, not 
helping. For he may well overcome, but that Is not the same as my 
overcoming!" Is it not? Think again, — think better of the Lord's most 
graciouB words. Did he not say, "Because I live, ye shall live also?" 
Every branch in the Vine is one with the Vine. Every believing sinner is 
a branch in the Vine. You were united to Christ the first moment you 
leaned on him. The Holy Spirit who led you to Christ did also unite you 
to him; and that union stands fast, however great be your trials and trib- 
ulations. 

It was in your feeble nature that he overcame tribulation, — tribula- 
tion ten thousand times more terrible than yours, — and he is following 
up his victory when from day to day the feeblest disciple, simply lean- 
ing on him, le shown to be mightier than all hell, and Btronger than the 
world. He would lose his fame as conqueror if you, a member of his 
body, were to fail. 

• • • 

Rev. Newell Dwlght Ilillls, D.D., says: In Germany, In a laboratory, 
a scientist showed me the new foods — the substitutes for the slow, tardy 
growths In field and vineyard. What capsules of dry powder! What 
combinations of chemicals to take the place of meat and bread! What 
foods In glass jars and chemicals In tin cans! Tried by all known food 
tests, these chemicals satisfied fully nature's demands. But looking at 
the capsules and dry powders and canned portions, I thought of the dif- 
ference between the way man manufactures foods and how Qod grows 
foods. 

I thought of the Concord grapes and the Catawbas, of the winesap 
apple and the Crawford peach, of the strawberry and the pomegranate, 
of the nectarine and the cantaloupe. Over against the mucilage capsules 
I put the raspberry ond tho blackberry, and over against the chemical 
pelleta I put tho pear and the plum. It Is ugliness against beauty, ashes 
against ambrosia, gall agalnBt nectar, sawdust against strawberry, death 
against life. 

How empty all modem substitutes for character! How futile are 
makeshifts of science In placo of the eternal realities of Ood! Even Christ 



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was made perfect through suffering, and the disciple is not ahove his 
Master, nor the servant above his Lord. And who, therefore, are these 
radiant ones about the throne of God? Are these they who have never 
known the brand of pain or the stain of suffering? No, these are they 
who came out of great tribulation and have made their robes white in 
the blood of the Lamb. These are they who were mobbed in Iconium, 
stoned in Lystra, burned in Ephesus, imprisoned in Rome, flogged in Lon- 
don, and assassinated in Washington! And who is this that cometh out 
of Edom, with garments that were dyed crimson from Bozrah? This is 
he who was slain for our transgressions, and on the cross spread 
wide his arms to lift us back to his Father's side. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Weaving in Shadow (502). 
In one of the famous lace shops of Brussels there are certain retired 
rooms devoted to the weaving of the finest and most delicate lace pat' 
terns. These rooms are altogether darkened save for the light from 
one small window falling directly upon the pattern. There is only one 
lace-maker in the room, and she sits where the narrow stream of light 
fails upon the thread she is weaving. "Thus," the guide explains, "do we 
secure our choicest products. Lace is always more delicately and beauti- 
fully woven when the worker is in the dark and only her pattern is in the 
light- 
Does not the same beautiful and mysterious result appear In work of 
any kind, when surrounding shadows compel the toiler to fix his attention 
solely upon the task in hand — the task upon which falls the concentrated 
light of life? When a soul finds itself shut in by disappointments, trials, 
bereavements, or physical limitations to its divinely appointed task, the 
one thing it is best fitted to do or teach in this world, how marvelously 
the pattern is wrought! What new power and beauty appear in both 
work and character! That one small window through which falls the 
light of heaven full upon our task is often the essential condition of 
highest achievements! — The Continent. 

Delicately Adjusted Treatment (503). 

The more one knows of the most afflicted lives, the more often the 
conviction flashes across us that the affliction is a delicately adjusted 
treatment. I remember that once a friend of mine was sent a rare plant, 
which he set in a big flowerpot close to a fountain basin. It never throve; 
it lived, indeed, putting out in the spring a delicate, stunted foliage, 
though my friend, who was a careful gardener, could never discover what 
ailed it. He was away for a few weeks, and the day after he was gone 
the flowerpot was broken by a careless garden boy, who wheeled a barrow 
roughly past it. The plant, earth and all, fell into the water; the boy 
removed the broken pieces of the pot, and, seeing that the plant had sunk 
to the bottom of the little pool, never troubled his head to fish it out. 

When my friend returned, he noticed one day in the fountain a new 
and luxurious growth of some unknown plant. He made careful inquiries, 
and found out what had happened. It then came out that the plant was 
in reality a waterplant, and that it had pined away in the stifling air for 
want of nourishment, perhaps dimly longing for the fresh bed of the pool. 



THE CONQUEST OF ADVERSITY 



325 



Even bo It has been times without number with some Btarving and 
thirsty soul that has gone on feebly trying to live a maimed life, shut up 
in itself, ailing, feeble. There has descended upon it what looks at first 
sight like a calamity, some affliction unaccountable, and then It proves 
that this was the one thing needed; that sorrow has brought out some 
latent unselfishness, or suffering energized some unuBed faculty of 
Btrength and patience. — Christian Intelligencer. 

Helped by Hindrances (504). 
Thompson, the devoted Edinburgh medical missionary, speakB of the 
cost of giving up a boy's social gathering for games and reading, because 
the desired ends Beemed not to be reached. A year or two afterward he 
started morning classes which proved a great success. A German 
countess was imprisoned, by those who would break up her Christian 
work among neglected sailors and fishermen, in a mad-house. Her plans 
were broken. But when her release came, the story of her awful treat- 
ment led to laws which prevented the like outrages, and provided inspec- 
tion of lunatic asylums and awakened so much sympathy and interest in 
her work that Bhe was able to do thrice as much as she did before. Both 
were hindered that they might be given larger things. 

The Gain of the Dark Room (505). 
DarknesB seems to be as necessary to life and growth In this world 
as 1b light. A worker for Christ who has recently suffered months of 
Illness, writes a cheery word of sympathy to a fellow sufferer, and adds: 
"It is a long time Bince I have done a day's work; It is only a half hour's 
work, or maybe fifteen minutes at a time. And many days I have been 
In a dark room. I wonder, sometimes, if a dark room is aa necessary for 
the developing of characters as it is for the development of negatives. 
If so, perhaps a time will come when I can look back upon the dark-room 
days with thankfulness. Just now, I want to work." To wait and trust 
God, even while one longs to be out in the light and at work, Is to gain 
and grow In the development which only the dark room can give. How 
good it is that God can be trusted to decide when the darkness is needed! 
— Sunday School Times. 

The Co»t of Love-Service (506). 
At the coronation of English monarchs It has been long the custom 
to place a wedding-ring upon the ruler'B left hand, implying thereby that 
he was married to his country, and must serve it as a husband his wife. 
When Queen Victoria was crowned the ring was found to be a trifle too 
small, but was nevertheless pressed on, causing the young queen no little 
pain. But on all bands her courtiers assured her It was a happy omen, 
for the tradition of the ring declares that the closer It fits the more 
beloved the monarch will be. How suggpstlve of that service, the noblest 
of all that we can render, the service that means soul-agony, heart-strain. 

In Training (507). 
A recent writer, who had found In a newspaper an Hem about a 
violin-maker who always went Into the forest himself and chose his 
violin woods from the north side of the trees, writes: "You don't think 



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anything about it now; it probably isn't true. But 1*11 wager that never 
again will you wake in the night to listen to the wind without thinking 
of the great storm-tossed, moaning, groaning, slow-toughening forest trees 
—learning to be violins I " — Young People. 

Serene in Trouble (508). 

The subtleties of the human heart are most perplexing. On the sur- 
face it would seem that cheerfulness depends on happy circumstances, 
good health, or great prosperity. Yet this is not an absolute rule, for 
cheerfulness is often found where these things are lacking. 

I used to visit a woman engaged in a "sweated industry." She lived 
In a small, ill-lighted, unsanitary room in a slum. She worked through 
the weary days, and knew nothing of holidays. Her wage was small, her 
occupation precarious and her health indifferent; yet she would work 
away, singing hymns, her favorite hymn being: 

"I feel like singing all the time, 
My tears are wiped away, 
For Jesus is a friend of mine, 
I'll praise him all the day." 

She was one of the happiest beings I have ever known. What was her 
secret? What prompted her happiness? It was religion. The religion 
of Christ is the supreme factor in inspiring cheerfulness in adversity. 

Herein is the chief glory of Christianity; its message of good cheer. 
When Jesus came to humanity, the world was shrouded in dull care. 
Cheerfulness was associated with sensual pleasure. God was a mystery, 
the future life black with uncertainty. Jesus came — the Light of the 
world — and at his coming the angel declared to the shepherds: "Behold, 
I bring you good tidings of great joy." 

He was not, as art has so often represented him, steeped in auStere 
gloom, with a face of pathetic sorrow; rather was he radiant with peace 
and joy. He saw the love of his Father in all nature, in the lilies of the 
field, and in the birds of the air. He was supremely cheerful in adversity. 
Even when over him there fell the shadow of the cross, and he knew he 
must tread the sorrowful way, he said to his disciples: "Be of good 
cheer; I have overcome the world." And as a legacy to his Church — to 
those who had to face persecution and stress for him — he bequeathed his 
peace. "Let not your heart be troubled." "My peace I give unto you." — 
Rev. G. E. Walters. 

Learning Obedience Through Suffering (509). 

A lady was summering in Switzerland. One day she started out for 
a stroll. Presently, climbing the mountain side, she came to a shepherd's 
hut. She walked to the door and looked in. There sat the shepherd. 
Near at hand, on a pile of straw, lay a single sheep. Scanning it closely, 
the lady saw that its leg was broken. At once her sympathy went 6ut 
to the suffering sheep. She looked up inquiringly to the shepherd. "How 
did it happen?" she said. To her amazement, the shepherd answered, 
"Madam, I broke that sheep's leg." A look of pain swept over the visitor's 
face. Seeing it, the shepherd went on: "Madam, of all the sheep in my 



THE CONQUEST OF ADVERSITY 327 

flock, this one was the most wayward. It never would obey my voice. It 
never would follow in the pathway, but wandered to the verge of many 
a perilous cliff and dizzy abyss. And not only was it disobedient itself, 
but it was ever leading the other sheep of my flock astray. I had before 
had experience with sheep of this kind. So I broke its leg. The first day 
I went to it with food, it tried to bite me. I left it alone for a couple 
of days. Then I went back to it. And now, it not only took the food, 
but licked my hand, and showed every sign of submission and even affec- 
tion. And now let me tell you something. When this sheep Is well, as 
it soon will be, it will be the model sheep of my flock. No sheep will 
hear my voice so quickly. None will follow so closely at my side. In- 
stead of leading its mates astray, it will now be an example and a guide? 
for the wayward ones, leading them, with itself, in the path of obedience 
to my call. In short, a complete transformation will have come into the 
life of this wayward sheep. It has learned obedience through its suffer- 
ings." — Selected. 

Radiant in Tribulations (510). 

A woman, until her eighteenth year, was so beautiful in face and 
form that no one could pass her by unnoticed. I saw her on her wedding 
day and she seemed the most exquisite of brides. She went to the home 
of her husband and entered into society and became a leader in a refined 
and intellectual circle. One day in church, at worship, she was suddenly 
attacked by sharp pain. From that moment, so long as she lived, she 
was never free for an instant from a torturing agony that confined her 
to her couch day and night. A strange malady had attacked the spinal 
mairow. Her poor hands were so twisted that she never liked anyone 
to see them, but her beautiful face grew more and more radiant in its 
spirituality, so that It was like the face of an angel. Her home, of which 
■he could see only one room, was perfectly appointed, and she directed 
Its movement and its ordering with entire serenity so long as she lived. 
8he kept in touch with her child's education, always knowing what he 
studied and sending for his teachers and professors that she might con- 
fer with them, from the time of the primary school until he was gradu- 
ated by the university. No one ever heard her complain, and it was her 
husband's summing up of her years of physical anguish that they had 
been years spent so near to Jesus that the house had been like heaven. — 
Margaret E. Sangster. 

Tested Because Trusted (511). 

A father who was an officer In the Union Army, with hlB son under 
him, wrote out an order, called his son, and said, "Deliver this to the gen- 
eral down on the Hrlng-llne." The young man placed the message under 
his belt, mounted his horse, and rode away. The enemy's bullets flew 
thick and fast while he made the dangerous ride. The father stood and 
watched, and waited, and wondered, while that strange conflict raged 
In bis soul that muBt tako place where the father and the officer are one 
person, and the son and subaltern the other, and that son exposed to 
danger by the father's command. At last the son rode back Into his 
father's presence with his foam-covered horse and dismounted. The 
father threw his arms about his boy's neck, nnd said. "My Bon, I did not 
want you killed, but I had to send a man that I could trust." God's 
bravest and best soldiers are In the hard places.— The Changeloss Christ. 



LXVII. MEN'S MOTHERS 



(Mother*' Day). 
"Son, Behold Thy Mother."— John 19:27. 



ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 



When we remember human nature's tendency to run to extremes it Is 
not surprising that one large section of Christendom should worship the 
Virgin Mary. She was the queen of mothers. Even with the few faint 
lines with which the Gospels sketch her character, she stands out clearly 
before us in all her gentle majesty and tender maternal solicitude, 
'•blessed among women," seeking to adjust her thinking to that mysterious 
miracle of her transcendently unique experience. How much significance 
there is in those words: "And Mary pondered these things in her heart." 
And how true it is that the sword that pierces her heart is the sword 
that pierces the heart of every other worthy mother. 



I. Why should we celebrate Mothers' Day? Mother's Day comes near 
to being the holiest day of the three hundred and sixty-five. There is 
nothing in the civil calendar to equal it, and in the ecclesiastical, it stands 
next to Christmas and Easter. Though opposed to the addition of any 
more special days to the over-crowded year, we are ready to say to the 
man or woman who conceived this, "Blessed art thou." For we believe 
It not only does homage to the dlvinest being in the world, but, also, has 
within Itself the promise and potency of the re-enthronement of mother- 
hood to Its God-appointed place. 

The enriching years have brought to us increasing respect for, and 
sympathy with, cur neighbors who pay homage to the Mother of our 
Lord. Making a place for her in their liturgy responds to a want of the 
human heart. And In the celebration of Mothers' Day, we meet them 
half-way; and we greet first the Madonna of Bethlehem, and then the 
Madonna of our childhood home with "Blessed art thou among women!" 

II. Make this a day of coronation. Kiss the hand that may have occa- 
sionally chastised you for your own good, but which always served you 
with the unique Bklll of maternal love. The more wrinkled it Ib, the 
diviner It Is. Place a coronet of forget-me-nots upon her head, or a 
garland of roses around her neck. Once each year, at least, say: "Mother, 
I thank you." By some manifestation of gratitude, reassure her of your 
unquenchable love. 

III. And there are mothfrs by adoption; those who for some cause or 
other have been led to supply a mother's place, like Mrs. Augustus Hare, 
portrayed In that charming book of English life, "Memorials of a Quiet 
Life." Without a child of her own, she adopted a relative's son, named 
him Augustus W. Mare, and poured upon him a wealth of affection that 
nurtured him Into the useful and noble man that he became. 



* 



L A mother's Influence Is beyond estimate. 

II. A mother's opportunity is priceless. 

III. A mother's need of Christ Is most urg< 




* * * 



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In the roll of heroines there are hundreds of "near" mothers. If you 
are indebted to one of them, take advantage of this day, and do her 
homage. And think of the beautiful young mothers who laid down their 
lives in giving birth to a child! Make this a Memorial Day and lay a 
flower upon their graves. — N. B. Rennick. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Mother's Day (512). 

The second Sunday in May is the day for the annual, general recog- 
nition of Mother's Day. A woman originated it. She was Miss Anna M. 
Jarvis of Philadelphia. Here is the story of the start as narrated in the 
Congregationalist: "Good motherhood is the basis of all our prosperity." 
In this single sentence, Miss Anna M. Jarvis, originator of Mother's Day, 
expressed at once her economic creed and the loving inspiration for her 
noble idea. Of course the conception could have sprung from only one 
source — the undying influence of some good mother over her child. That 
child was Miss Jarvis. Between Mrs. Jarvis and her daughter there 
must have obviously been unusual ties, an intimacy and comradeship that 
even death could not wholly disperse. "She was an old-fashioned mother," 
said Miss Jarvis, "home and Sunday School were her chief interests." 

Indeed, down in the West Virginia home the mother had taught an 
infants' class so many years that, at the last, she was guiding the chil- 
dren's children, doubling her influence on a second generation! 

Mindful of the little ones whom her mother loved, Miss Jarvis had 
provided for the memorial service a beautiful array of white carnations, 
to be distributed among the children at the close of the service. "If to 
the children, why not to every one?" suggested another loving friend of 
the dead. And so this "mother's service" was observed, quietly and in 
honor of a single faithful mother. 

But the little episode of the white carnations and her continuing 
love for her departed parent brought suggestion to Miss Jarvis. Why 
should we wait till these dear queens of our homes had laid down their 
scepters forever to do them more than the everyday honors? Thus It 
was that Mother's Day gradually took form. First, the date had to be 
selected. 

"May seems In many ways a memorial month," said Miss Jarvis. 
"Indeed, practically the whole month is given over to the commemora- 
tion of Mary, the Divine Mother, among our Catholic friends. Then, too, 
it does not interfere with any of our Protestant occasions. And, lastly, 
it is a kind of link between the spirit of Easter and Children's Sunday." 
So Miss Jarvis chose the second Sunday in May for a great new Memorial 
Day which leaps across national frontiers and stops not at oceans or con- 
tinents. 

Only One Mother (513). 

There are thousands of stars that shine at night. 
Thousands of flowers that make Bummer bright; 
Thousands of dewdrops the morning greet, 
Thousands of birds with voices sweet, 
Thousands of bees in the purple clover, 
But only one mother the whole world over. 



MEN'S MOTHERS 



331 



A Mother's Influence (514). 
We are told that once in the course of a conversation with Madame 
Campan, Napoleon Bonaparte remarked, "The old systems of instruction 
seem to be worth nothing; what is yet wanting in order that the people 
should be properly educated?" "Mothers," replied Madame Campan. The 
reply struck the Emperor. "Yes," he said, "here is a system of educa- 
tion in one word. Be it your care, then, to train up mothers who shall 
know how to educate their children." 

And oft, when half allured to tread. 
The paths that into sin decoy, 
I've felt her soft hand bless my head, 
And that fond touch hath saved her boy. 

— Anon. 

The Story of the Apron String (515). 
There was once a little bey who had Just learned to walk. He was 
not very steady upon his feet, so his mother tied her apron string 
around his waist, and said, "There, little man, when you stumble you 
can pull yourself up by that, and you will not fall." And the child did 
as she said, and all went well, and the mother sang as she went about 
her work. 

Day by day the child grew taller, until his head came above the 
window Bill, and often he stood there looking at the green grass, and 
the yellow flowers, and the trees with their waving branches, and the 
meadow beyond, and the river singing and shining in the sun, and, far 
In the distance, the purple mountains piled against the sky. When he 
■aw them he said, "Mother, untie your apron string, and let me go." 
Bui the mother said, "Not yet, little man. Only yesterday you stumbled 
and would have fallen but for this. Walt until you are stronger." And 
the child did as she said, and all went well, and the mother sang as she 
went about her work. 

Day by day the child grew stronger and taller, and more and more 
he left playthings at the hearth, and stood at the window. One morning 
In the springtime the door stood open, and as he stood at the threshold 
and looked out again, he saw the green grass, and the yellow flowers, 
and now the trees seemed to beckon with their branches, and he heard 
the voice of the river as It called, "Come, come, come," and he started 
•o quickly that the apron string snapped, and he ran down the steps 
with the end dangling behind him. "Ho, ho," he Bald, "I never knew 
my mother's apron string was so weak." 

The mother gathered her end of the broken apron string, and hid It 
In her bosom; and she turned again to her work, but sang no longer. 
The boy ran on, under the trees, over the grass and the meadow, to the 
river's bank, and then on along the bank toward the purple mountain* 
that were piled against the Hky. Sometimes the path was smooth, and 
he would run. Sometimes It was steep and rocky, and ho had to climb 
on hands and knees. Once It turned suddenly, and came out again 
upon the river's bank, Just where It d;ished ovpr a preat precipice. The 
way was full of mist, and the rocks were wet and slippery. He made a 



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mis-step, but just as he slipped over the brink of the abyss, something 
caught upon the point of a rock and held him dangling over the preci- 
pice. He put his hand to see what it was, and found it was the broken 
apron string still tied to his waist. "Ho, ho," he said, "I never knew 
how strong my mother's apron string was." And he pulled himself up 
by it, and set his feet firmly upon the rock, and went on toward the 
purple mountains that were piled against the sky. — Laura Richards. 

The Mother's Question (516). 
In a time of cholera a mother lost her two children in one day. 
When at night her husband came from his business in the city, she said 
to him, "A friend lent me some jewels, and he now wishes to receive 
them again. What shall I do?" "Return them by all means," said her 
husband. Then she led the way to another room, and pointed to the 
silent forms of their children — S. S. Chronicle. 

Mother Influence (517). 

Orison Swett Marden declared that it is a strange fact that our 
mothers, the molders of the world, should get so little credit and should 
be so seldom mentioned among the world's achievers. The world sees 
only the successful son; the mother is but a round in the ladder upon 
which he climbed. Her name or face is never seen in the papers; only 
her son is lauded and held up to our admiration. Yet it was that face 
in the background that made his success possible. 

"All that I am or hope to be," said Lincoln, after he had become 
president, "I owe to my angel mother." 

"My mother was the making of me," said Thomas A. Edison, re- 
cently. "She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt that I had some one 
to live for; some one I must not disappoint." 

"All that I have ever accomplished in life," declared Dwight L. 
Moody, the great evangelist, "I owe to my mother." 

"To the man who has had a mother, all women are sacred for her 
sake," said Jean Paul Richter. 

"A kiss from my mother made me a painter," said Benjamin West. 

Plaster Honor (518). 
A talented but obscure Greek sculptor was commissioned by another 
more renowned to execute a statue to be set up in the market-place. 
But the obscure one was not to have the credit of his work; the name 
of the renowned one was to be fixed to the statue. And the statue was 
set up, praised, and the famous sculptor got all the honor. As the years 
went on, however, the winds and frosts and rains did their work, and the 
name on the statue cracked and crumbled and at last it fell off, and the 
name of the true artist was seen behind, cut into the imperishable stone. 
The false name had been cut in plaster only. We often think of that 
story as we read biographies. When we notice how the hero's greatness 
is ascribed to this Important personage or that, this mighty incident or 
that, we wonder within ourselves when will the plaster fall off, and the 
man's mother receive the honor that is her due? In ninety-nine cases 
out of the hundred, it is the mother's influence that makes the man. 
You may not think so now; wait till you are a little older, a little wiser, 



MEN'S MOTHERS 



333 



till you have found out a little more what sharp edges there are in the 
world, and until your eyes have been cleansed by some scalding tears, 
then the plaster-work of your life will drop, and behind it all you will 
see, and see with reverence, your mother's name — the name of the one 
to whom you owe all that is best in your character. Oh, mothers, moth- 
ers! — be mothers; no better prayer can be prayed for you. — Selected. 

The Mother Stayed (519). 
I remember once in Edinburgh, at a meeting in the parish church, 
the veteran evangtlist, Richard Weaver, was preaching. The large 
church was crowded, and several mothers were there with their infanta. 
One young mother, who had her baby with her, was a poor working- 
mau'B wife and had either to stay at home with her baby and miss the 
service, or bring the little one with her. So to the church she came, 
but about midway through the Bervice the youngster, with a pair of 
good, strong lungs, sent forth more noise than music. Many of the 
people frowned and scowled, and every one of the two thousand turned 
to stare at mother and child. The mother arose to leave the building. 
But Weaver would not permit it. "God bless you, mother!" shouted the 
evangelist. "God bless you, come back and take your seat, and God 
bless your child!" The young mother came back and the child slept 
peacefully and quietly on Its mother'! breast. Then, turning toward 
the audience, Weaver said: "Will you please cease staring at that 
mother and mind your own business? Do you know what it cost her to 
be here tonight? It has cost her a great deal. Now, leave her alone." 
Then looking up toward the gallery, he again said: "God bless you, 
mother, and God bless your child!" — Selected. 

Mother* Do Care (520). 
"I never would have done it if I had known mother would care bo 
much." 8o a foolish girl is reported to have said on her return home 
from a runaway absence of six days, that drove her family frantic. Jeop- 
ardized the very life of her invalid father, and reduced her careworn 
mother to the depths of grief and fear. Of this incident, the Cleveland 
News says: 

Perhaps none but a mother can really know how much mothers 
care, but only supreme thoughtlessness, not to say selfishness, could ig- 
nore the fact that they do care. It should be evident to every child, It 
■hould form hlB earliest memory, his strongest belief, his most powerful 
motive. But, apparently, It doesn't. 

It It because mother's loving care begins before the beginning, sur- 
rounds and protects through all the big and little dangers and trials 
and feara, and continues strong and unshaken to the very end, that 
children too often seem to accept It as a natural phenomenon, a matter 
of course as tho boating of their hearts or the succession of days and 
nights, snd no more to be heeded or requited? 

"Her love outlasts all other human love, 

Her faith endures the longest, hardest test. 
Her grace and patience through a lifetime prove 
That she's a friend, the noblest and the best" 



LXVIII. "NONE OTHER NAME." 



"Neither is there salvation In any other: for there Is none other name 
under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." — 

Acts 4:12. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
This uniqueness of Christ's salvation was forcibly brought out In a 
sermon by Rev. Dr. Jeffry Johnstone. He said: The world has seen 
many saviours, for whom we thank God, saviours of great cities like 
Rome, such aB Horatius who held the bridge, saviours of great coun- 
tries like Italy, such as Garibaldi, the simple soldier and liberator; 
saviours of great numbers of men, such as Simpson, the celebrated sur- 
geon, who made the most dangerous operations possible by the discov- 
ery of the use of chloroform. But great as these men were as saviours 
In their own distinctive spheres, yet they are not to be mentioned in the 
same breath with Jesus Christ: for the simple reason that their saving 
work was circumscribed and confined mainly to the bodies of men. 
Whereas the saving work of Jesus was original in that it embraced body 
and soul. Indeed his chief aim was to save the soul and in saving the 
soul save the body also. Great masters of industry speak of their em- 
ployes as so many hands, and the church speaks of the multitude of un- 
educated and Irreligious people as masses. Jesus never looked at men 
as hands and he never looked at the multitude as masses. In every child 
of the human race he saw an immortal soul, a pearl of Infinite price, de- 
signed to shine, when redeemed, with eternal luster in his crown of 
glory. The soul he saw beneath the rags of the beggar, beneath the 
crlmeB of the greatest criminal, beneath the nakedness and the repulslve- 
ness of the savage, beneath the superciliousness and overreflnement of 
the dilettante, he came to save by an everlasting salvation and to redeem 
that soul he gave his life. 

• » * 

On the theme, "The Indispensable Christ," Rev. Dr. J. R. Miller 
said: 

There are human friendships that seem to be really indispensable. 
The trusting, clinging wife may Bay to her husband, who is being taken 
from her: "I cannot live without you. if you leave mo I will die. I 
cannot face the cold winds without your shelter. I cannot go on with 
the duties, the burdens, the struggles, the responsibilities, without your 
comradeship, your love, your cheer, your strong support, your wise 
guidance." So It seems to her, as she stands amid the wreck of her 
hopes; but when the strong man on whom she had leaned Ib gone, the 
sorrowing woman takes up the taBks, the duties, the burdens, the battles 
and walks alone, and courage comes Into her heart and she growa in 
heroic qualities. "I never drenmed that I could possibly get along as I 
have," said a woman the other day, after a year's widowhood. Then she 
told of her utter falntness when ahe realized that he was gone. He had 
been everything to her. She had wanted for nothing, had never known 
a care. But as Bhe turned away from hlB grave, It seemed to her thai 



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everything was lost. What could she do? But Christ was with her. 
Peace came into her heart, calmness came, then courage began to re- 
vive. She grew self-reliant and strong. She was a marvel to her friends 
as she took up the work of her life. She showed resources which none 
ever imagined she had. The problem of life in such cases as hers is, not 
to be hurt by the sorrow, but to grow strong in it. This woman's be- 
reavement made her. She lived, and lived grandly, without the one who 
had seemed absolutely indispensable. 

But this is not the case in our relation to Christ. He is indispensable. 
There is no other name. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Without a Peer (521). 
Christ has no rivals. Not that other teachers have not uttered much 
truth, and some of them had uttered many of the truths which he taught. 
The fact that the substance of some of Christ's sayings is to be found 
in the writings of ancient sages does not detract from the worth of 
Christ as a teacher, nor lower him in the least from his pre-eminence. 
Our study of him has brought us to see him as the "Light which lighteth 
every man which cometh into the world." He was in the world before 
his incarnation; and I do not hesitate to believe that he was the author 
of all truth voiced by all the wise teachers of all ages and nations. 
They were given to see in part what he saw as a whole. They are lights 
of their times and nations; he is the Light of the world, the Sun that 
needs not to be jealous of any mind that caught and reflected some of 
his rays. No one can possibly doubt the fact that for now nearly nine- 
teen hundred years the teachings of Jesus have been the master-force 
in the world. They have transformed the highest thought of the world; 
they have set the standards of judgment by which men and institutions 
have been tested; they have readjusted men's conceptions of God and of 
man. — J. T. McFarland, D.D. 

The Incomparable Friend (522). 
"I have found a great Friend, and I want to tell you about him." 
With these words a man began his talk in the police station of a great 
city. "It was a straight-arm, parry-and-thrust sort of a sermon," said a 
visitor, "with such oratory as a man achieves after five years of har- 
anguing a brick wall. But it landed. It was about 'My Friend and your 
Friend,' who had taken him out of the gutter, and was able to save 
even unto the police station." And then the visitor, writing in a news- 
paper, describes the result. When the short sermon was ended, and the 
leader asked the men to pray with him, every man of the sixteen in the 
cells went down on his knees, and the prayer was heard in perfect sil- 
ence, broken only by an occasional sob. The service was repeated in the 
corridor where the "drunks" were assembled. Boisterous they were at 
first, but the service calmed them down and at length brought every man 
to his knees, save one who was too drunk to kneel. Again up stairs, 
where twenty-seven young girls were, the service brought comfort and 
hope. "I came away," said the visitor, "thanking God for a religion 
that is as good in the prison as in the cathedral, and which can tell its 
story in plain, simple words that go to the heart in its sin and need. In 



"NONE OTHER NAME" 



337 



the presence of what I had seen, theological discussions grew petty. 
Why should men ask whether mighty works were done in the cities of 
old when these mightier works are done in the midst of us?" — The Dl- 
rine Challenge. 

Christ Supreme (523). 
Senator John J. Ingalls once wrote a statement of his religious con- 
victions, closing with these words: "Jesus is one of the colossal figures 
In history. Pilate and Herod and Caesar, the kings, heroes and philoso- 
phers of that time, are nothing. No one cares that they lived or died, 
but millions now would die rather than surrender their faith in Jesus." — 
Rev. Edwin Whipple Caswell. 

Other Foundation There is None (524). 
The life that aspires to the loftiest things must have a foundation 
proportionately deep and substantial. They do not set these modern sky- 
scrapers on the surface, but they sink the mightiest and strongest struc- 
tural work many feet below the ground and rest it on a substructure of 
stone and concrete and steel which will give solidity and permanence 
to the great building above. The reason why so many fail in religion 
and life Is that they have not laid the foundations deep enough. — Se- 
lected. 

Jesus Over All (525). 
In India I saw that monument, the Taj Mahal. In the center of the 
structure is a piece of marble 16 feet across and 8 or 10 feet high. A 
Mohammedan guard stands there, and while I was looking up he shouted 
something about one God and Mohammed his prophet. It echoed and 
echoed, and we listened. I could not leave with that echoing across the 
world, and I begged permission to stand where the soldier stood. Re- 
luctantly he consented, "Jesus, highest over all," and It echoed and re- 
echoed to the highest peaks of the Himalayas. That cry Is to sound 
around the world. — Cortland Myers, D.D. 

The Divine Christ (526). 
General Lew Wallace, in giving an account of his religious experi- 
ence, said: When I began 10 write Ben Hur, in 1876, I had reached an 
age in life when men usually begin to study and reflect on the good they 
may have done In the world up to that time. Never having read the 
Bible, I knew little of matters of a religious nature; although I was not 
in every respect an Infidel, I was persistently and notoriously indifferent. 
I resolved to begin the study of the good Book In earnest. I know I 
was conscientious In my search for the truth. I weighed, I analyzed, I 
counted, I compared. The evolution from conjecture into knowledge, 
through opinion and belief, was gradual but irresistible, and at length 
I stood firmly and defiantly on the solid rock. I am sure the preparation 
and completion of Ben Hur, If It has done nothing more, has convinced 
Its author of the divinity of the lowly Nazarene, who walked and talked 
with God. 

For or Agalnit God (527). 
Over In France we are told that there are those who so hate all 
religion that they have tattooed upon their arms two letters that stand 



338 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



for "Against God." That is shocking to the Christian mind. Yet there 
are many who are "against God" who do not proclaim it in that way. 
The worst atheism to be found anywhere is not that which vaunts itself 
of the fact, but it is the atheism of life — the atheism that leads a man 
to live as if there were no God. This, after all, has been said, is the 
important test, whether we live for God or against God. It is an awful 
thing to tattoo one's self to proclaim one's irreligion, but it is worse to 
tattoo the soul and to have one's life say, "I am against God." — Selected. 

The Unfathomable Christ (528). 
A friend of mine, one autumn, was showing me seed from his gar- 
den. It was a small seed. The capsule of it was very beautiful; but the 
seed itself within the capsule — how dainty its shape! and its top push- 
ing up and branching out into feathery filaments, exquisitely adapted to 
its distribution by the wind. My friend said to me, holding the seed, 
"How wonderful nature is!" Then he waited an instant, and his voice 
grew reverent as he added, "Or, as I prefer to say, how wonderful God 
is!" You see, it was really quite impossible to explain that little seed 
in the terms of mere nature. When you thoughtfully looked at it, you 
could not resist the feeling that about that little seed there must have 
been some divine design and working. You remember that Tennyson 
sings the same truth: 

"Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies, 
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower — but, if I could understand, 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is." 
As you cannot explain a flower or a little seed in the terms of a 
mere nature, so it is utterly impossible to explain the imperial person — 
Jesus Christ, in the terms of a mere humanity. He is so infinitely more 
than man. — Wayland Hoyt, DJD. 



LXIX. RECOGNITION OF DIVINE HELP. 



"Having therefore obtained help of God I continue unto this day." — 
Acts 26:22. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Preaching on God's providential help and guidance in the lives of In- 
dividuals, Rev. Dr. Arthur T. Pierson, 6ald: 

The word providence literally means forevision, and hence, fore- 
action — preparation for what is foreseen — and expresses God'B invisible 
rule of thiB world, including his care, control, guidance, as exercised 
over both the animate and inanimate creation. 

God's providential presence in history is especially evident in the 
story of missionary work. The biographies of leading missionaries read 
like chapters where prophecy lights up history. Think of William 
Carey's inborn adaptation to his work as translator In India, of Living- 
stone's career as missionary explorer and general in Africa; of Catherine 
Booth's capacity as mother of the Salvation Army; of Jerry McAuley's 
preparation for rescue work in New York City; of Alexander Duff's fit- 
ness for educational work in India; of Adoniram Judson's schooling for 
the building of an apostolic church in Burma; of John William's uncon- 
scious training for his career as evangelist in the South Seas. Then 
mark the unity and continuity of labor. See one worker succeed another 
at crises unforeseen by man, as when Gordon left for the Sudan on the 
day when Livingstone's death was first known in London, or Pilkington 
arrived in Uganda the very year when MacKay's death was to leave a 
pr<\'tt gap to be filled. Then study the theology of inventions, and watch 
the furnishing of new facilities for the work as it advanced. He who 
kept back the three greatest inventions of reformation times, the marin- 
er's compass, the steam engine, and the printing presB, until his church 
put on her new garments, waited to unveil nature's deeper secrets, which 
should make all men neighbors, until the reformed church was mobilized 
as an army of conquest! 

* « » 

Rev. Alexander Maclaren, D.D., said, with reference to God's loving 
Interposition on man's behalf: 

Our experience yields fuel for our faith. We have been near death 
many a time! we have never fallen into it Our eyes have been wet 
many a time; God has dried them. Our feet have been ready to fall 
many a time, and If at the moment when we were tottering on the edge 
of the precipice, we have cried to him and said, "My feet have well-nigh 
slipped," a strong hand has been held out to us. "The Lord upholdeth 
them that are in the act of falling," as the old psalm, rightly rendered, 
has It, and If wo have pushed aside his hand, and gone down, then the 
next clause of the same vorse applies, for he "ralseth up those that have 
fallen," and are lying prostrate. 



340 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



ILLUSTRATIVE THOUHGTS AND INCIDENTS. 
"The Unseen Hand" (529). 
Mr. Philip Mauro says: "One never-to-be-forgotten evening in New 
York City, I strolled out in my usual unhappy frame of mind, intending 
to seek diversion at the theater. This purpose carried me as far as the 
lobby of a theater on Broadway, and caused me to take my place in the 
line of ticket purchasers. But an unseen hand turned me aside, and the 
next thing that I remember I had wandered far from the theater, and 
my attention was arrested by a very faint sound of singing which came 
to my ears amid the noises on Eighth Avenue, near Forty-fourth street." 
A few moments later Mr. Mauro found himself in a prayer meeting and 
was converted to Christ. The "unseen hand" did it. — John Y. Emert, D.D. 

The Trouble Clerk (530). 
There is some one in telephone offices, or on call there, who is offi- 
cially termed the Trouble Clerk. If your 'phone doesn't work, or the 
lines get crossed, you will probably make her acquaintance. You ask 
Central what to do, and this clerk is called up, and when you have 
talked it over, a man Is sent out to help you. It is a fine thing to know 
what to do when one gets into trouble. Just go to headquarters. There 
1b One who will make it his business to help you — he promises it. — 
Wellspring. 

Counting the Benefits (531). 
Mark Guy Pearse's little daughter once said to him, "Father, I am 
going to count the stars." "Very well," he said, "go on." By and by he 
heard her counting, "Two hundred and twenty-three, two hundred and 
twenty-five, Oh, dear," she said, "I had no idea there were so many!" 
And, moved by her experience, he said: "I sometimes say in my soul, 
'Now, Master, I am going to count the benefits.' Soon my heart sighs, 
not with sorrow, but burdened with such goodness, and I say to myself, 
T had no idea that there were so many.' " 

Our Father's Care (532). 

Our days are in God's hands. And this is not calling us to put on 
Back-cloth for, if they are in God's hands, they are in good hands. They 
surely could not be in better keeping. "It is a fearful thing to fall into 
the hand of the living God." Is it? God is love. Is it a fearful thing 
to fall into the hands of love? Yes, as a rebel. But for the Christian, 
it is a blessed experience. For the Christian the fall is a flight, the sink- 
ing a soaring, the prostration is a promotion. It means slipping into the 
clasp of his Father. 

Acknowledging God's Care (533). 

Let us count up what he has done for us. Let us make confession 
of tls goodness and our indebtedness. Let us begin each day with a new 
thanksgiving and reckon the future in terms of his abiding presence and 
helpfulness. — H. Kingman. 

Every Man's Life Plan of God (534). 

According to the view of one, the circumstances of life are purely 
accidental. We are in a universe without plan or purpose. Man is a 



RECOGNITION OF DIVINE HELP 



341 



waif driven hither and yon like a bit of seaweed in the surf, the play of 
capricious forces. 

According to another we are governed but by a force unloving and 
destructive. A colossal tyrant is enthroned in the heavens, ordering 
man's hampered and depressing career. There is small gain In this view 
over the first. As well believe in chaos as in some inquisitor holding his 
victim on the rack. 

But according to the austere and beautiful thought of the prophet, 
where he compares man to the clay in the potter's hands, the good God 
is the Power ordering and disciplining man. Hands of love are fash- 
ioning the rough materials into vessels of use and beauty. 

It is a long process by which the clay from the pit stands on the 
table at length as a rich and gleaming vase. The shapeless lump must 
endure the throwing, the turning, the delicate hand work, the glazing, 
the repeated visits to the fiery furnace. If clay could be endowed with 
consciousness it must often wonder at its cruel treatment. 

Not otherwise men baffled and discouraged by the ways of Provi- 
dence often ask hard questions. They demand the meaning, if there ba 
any meaning, in such experiences as come to them. Materialism has no 
semblance of answer. At such times faith is the only key to a great 
mystery. Beside it unbelief is weakness and impotence complete. 

Life may be regarded as a transforming process. A man is a calcu- 
lated work of his Creator, to whose completion the wisdom and power 
of God will be devoted. Doubtless not until we can view life from its 
heavenward side will compensation for our hard discipline be apparent 
In souls brought into the symmetry and beauty of the Maker's image. — 
Selected. 

God In the World (535). 

What we need Is a profound faith in God's ruling all things, said 
General Gordon. John Wesley had that faith when he Baid, I read my 
newspaper In order to see how God governs the world. 

Cromwell had that faith. What are all our histories, he asked, but 
God manifesting himself? 

Lincoln had that faith. No human council hath devised nor hath 
any human mind worked out these great things, he declared. They are 
the gracious gifts of the most high God, who, while dealing with us in 
anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. And again 
he said: Now at the end of three years' struggle the nation's condition 
Is not what either party or any man desired or expected. God alone can 
claim It. Whither It Is tending seems plain. If God now wills the re- 
moval of a great wrong and wills also that we of the North as well as 
you of the South shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, Im- 
partial history will llnd therein new cause to attest and revere the Justice 
and goodness of God. 

Is that faith ours? Can we say with Dr. Lyman Abbott: I no longer 
look back for the evidence that God was In history— though I believe 
that be was in history — but I look about me to see him in history now. — 
TarbelL 

Grateful Recognition of God's Goodne»t (536). 
Oo, Christian, praise God for past mercies, and It will not be long 



342 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



before thou hast a new song put into thy mouth for a present mercy. 
Faith has a good memory, and can tell the Christian many stories of 
ancient mercies; and when his present meal falls short, it can entertain 
the soul with a cold dish. God intends more comfort from every mercy 
he gives than the mercy itself amounts to. He would have thee make it 
a help to thy faith, and a shore to thy hope, when shaken by any future 
strait whatsoever. The husbandman does not sell all his corn that he 
reaps, but saves some for seed, which may bring him another crop; 
so thou shouldst not only feast thyself with the joy of thy mercy, but 
save the remembrance as hope-seed. — William Gurnall. 

Help Yourself to God (537). 

A recent writer tells of one of the noblest of Christian ministers, 
who awoke one night, several years ago, and as he lay thinking it seemed 
to him he heard a voice say, "Help yourself to God." At first he was 
almost shocked. It seemed irreverent, and yet the words repeated them- 
selves over and over again, "Help yourself to God, help yourself to God, 
help yourself." Gradually a sense of peace and joy filled his heart, and 
he realized as never before how near God is, how he stands at our very 
side, waiting to give us abundantly of his Spirit, his love, and his help — 
we have only to help ourselves. That evening he preached in a New 
York church, and told this experience of his. Afterward he learned that 
a lady in the congregation had come to New York to undergo a severe 
surgical operation. She had come into the church feeling greatly bur- 
dened with anxiety and shrinking from the ordeal before her. Dr. 
Adams' words seemed like a message from God to her, and she said 
her last conscious thought as she lay on the operating table was that 
God was beside her with help and strength sufHcient for all her needs — • 
she had only to take all she wanted. She had caught a glimpse of the 
heavenly resources offered for her use and had simply taken God at his 
word and availed herself of them. And so may we. 

How God Helped Him (538). 
Recently I met a man who was an active and efficient Christian 
worker. During our conversation he gave me a bit of his past life. 
"When I was a young man," he said, "I fell into bad company, and went 
from bad to worse. I got into debt, and my creditors began to press me. 
Then I had an opportunity to steal a large sum of money, with little 
chance of detection. On the morning of the day I'd set to take the 
money, I found a little card on my desk, placed there I know not how, 
which read, 'Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.' That little card 
troubled me all day, and I did not take the money. I became convinced 
that, however that card might have come to my desk, Christ had sent 
it to save me; and from that day to this I have worked for his cause." 
— Sunday School Times. 

God's Protecting Guidance (539). 
And what Is the goal toward which this Divine Governor is leading 
men? The story of the Lord shall go before thee, the mercy of God 
shall be thy reward. Daily thou shalt hear his voice saying, "This is 
the way, walk ye in it." The Lord shall guide thee continually and, 



RECOGNITION OF DIVINE HELP 



343 



with thlB reBult, "thou shalt be like unto a watered garden, like unto a 
Bpring whose gushing waters fail not." In his certainty of victory, 
Isaiah sweeps all the world for similes beautiful enough to describe the 
good fortune of the man who is guided by God. "God shall go before 
thee." When the Prince and Princess of Wales went out to the Dur- 
bar in India, messengers went on in advance, safeguarding the Suez 
Canal, fitting up the ship with comforts in India, putting in ice plants to 
cool the heated air, making the parks in Delhi to seem like an Eden 
garden for beauty and delight. And God doth send his messengers before 
your face to prepare the way for your life, because you are dear unto 
him. "The glory of God shall encamp unto thy rearward." In the re- 
treat of the Ten Thousand, Xenophon tells us that the rearward was 
the danger point of attack. All day the young Greeks marched out of 
the enemies' country, and when the night fell, the farmers would come 
in to attack the rear where the sick, the tired and the crippled were 
Blowly tolling forward. Not the head of the company Buffered. 
At last the Greek general took his bravest, freshest and noblest 
youths and equipped them with doable arms and caused them 
to encamp upon the rearward, and so brought them In safety to 
the homeland and the sight of the sea. "And thy life shall be as a foun- 
tain of waters." The fountain meant to the people of that ancient time 
the place of cleansing and the renewal of life itself. In the English gal- 
lery is a canvas called the "Waters of Lethe." When these pilgrims 
come to the edge of the river, they are grizzled, worn, aged, crippled 
and in rags, and down into the life-giving waters they plunge. But on 
the other side of the river stand a group in bright array. All are young, 
beautiful, radiant, and with songs and outbreaking joy they go across the 
grass of Eden. What has wrought this transformation? These radiant 
oneB have passed through the waters of cleansing and the renewal of 
life. God hath guided them, hath at last redeemed them, into hit own 
likeness. — HUlis. 



LXX. THE DYNAMICS OF THE GOSPEL. 



"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for It Is the power of God 
unto salvation to every one that believeth." — Romans 1:16. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. R. L. Stevenson cited this instance of the Gospel's trans- 
forming power from bis pastoral experience: 

Thirty years ago when I became pastor of a church in Western 
New York, one man in the congregation Impressed me particularly when- 
ever 1 met him or saw him in his place in the sanctuary. He was a tall 
man, with a massive head, covered with heavy hair hardly iron gray; 
neither voice. nor manner indicating any weakness, though he was within 
two years of his fourscore and ten. I found that he had been for more 
than fifty years a member of that church, and was one that was looked 
upon in the community as a leader in the ways of godliness. He died 
during the next year after an illness of several weeks, during which he 
gave many illustrations of the power and beauty of a Christian char- 
acter developed by long experience. 

Soon after I became acquainted with him, he gave me an account 
of his coming to the hope and life of a Christian. 

He was thirty-two years old, and considered himself settled in his 
views of duty, his moral habits and his standing among his fellow men. 
He felt that this was all that was necessary. With his wife's brother, 
he had formed a partnership in wagon-making. The country was new, 
they bad set up a shop in the woods, and close by, the two couples had 
built a double cabin for a temporary home. One day, he went from the 
shop to the bouse, and, not finding his wife, he stepped outside to enter 
the door of the other apartment. As he did so, he met his sister-in-law. 
She with her hands full of something she was carrying in from an out- 
side fireplace, stood for a minute to say, "Have you ever thought of 
your sins?" Startled by a question so unexpected and under such cir- 
cumstances, he asked the question, "What is sin?" Her reply was as 
prompt: "Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law 
of God." 

"I had learned the Catechism In old Connecticut," said he, "but It 
had gone Into one ear and out at the other. But, In an Instant, as she 
spoke these words, I found myself changed. I could not understand it, 
I have never understood It; but If ever I became a Christian, It seems to 
me to have been at that instant." 

Soon after, he went before the church to offer himself for member- 
ship. He told his story. When he had finished, he was surprised to 
hear a man sitting behind him say to another, "I wish I had so good nn 
experience as that to tell of." In his half delirious condition, during his 
last illness, he told me what an encouragement those words had been 
to him. He was for some time troubled with questions as to the genu- 
ineness of his hope, because of the Incident which brought him to In- 
dulge It. But the man who had spoken thus of him was conspicuous for 
his godly life. So that, again and again, throughout the long years, he 



S46 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



was accustomed to Bay to himself, "If such a man as J. P. could speak 
in commendation of all I can tell of in my having come to a hope, I too, 
may speak of it with confidence." 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
A Remarkable Witness (540). 

In Philadelphia, a man came into an evangelistic service one evening 
wounded and bleeding. He was one of the roughest of the rough, who 
a few minutes before had been in a saloon fight and was so horribly 
beaten that he fled to the meeting house to save his life. He was one 
of those men who had lived his whole life, from his very babyhood, in 
rough and wicked associations. He had never in his life opened a Bible. 
And while in this place of refuge he listened to the truth, the Holy 
Spirit touched his heart, and in the agony of his conviction for sin he 
began to cry out in the anguish of his soul, "God have mercy upon me, 
a sinner!" That night the Saviour's pardoning love was manifested to 
him, and the peace of God turned his agony for sin into thanksgiving 
for forgiveness. He left the house a new man in Christ Jesus. And now 
comes that divine wonder of wonders that has been repeated so often. 
This man. restored to his right mind, and rejoicing in the pardoning 
grace of Christ, began at once to work for the Saviour. All his hatred 
toward the men who had beaten him was gone. And he went straight 
back to them to tell them of his new-found hope and joy. They listened 
in amazement, and sixteen of the roughest men in Philadelphia within 
a few weeks were through his instrumentality brought to Christ. No 
mere man could do that. It was the ever-living Son of God born anew 
in that man's heart. — Banks. 

Conquered by Christ (541). 
In a certain New England village a woman noted for her spiteful 
tongue became converted. People believed in the genuineness of that 
conversion when in one house after another she was found trying to undo 
the mischief she had created by her malicious gossip. She did not wait 
for neighbors to "nail a lie," or twit her with a piece of slander, but 
went round bravely taking back the untrue stories she had circulated. 
One of these neighbors bore emphatic witness to the power of such re- 
pentance: 

"I haven't ever took much stock in merrycles, but for the last four, 
five weeks all New Harbor's been a-seeing one. It didn't affect me a 
particle to hear of her go in' forward and standin' up to be prayed for; 
but Sally Ann actually goin' around and eating humble pie where she's 
told crooked stories sort o' set folks thinking." That kind of repentance 
means something. — Pilgrim Teacher. 

The Miracle of Recreated (542). 

That great California scientist, Luther Burbank, takes a tree 
that has been going to the bad for some reason or other for hun- 
dreds of years, and at last has become altogether ugly and noxious, and 
by the shock of a new creation he breaks up all its old habits, turns its 
energies into fresh channels, and makes of it a lovely and fruitful thing. 

. . . And if your magician can work that miracle, and break up 
the habits of the tree, and make of it a new thing, beautiful and fruitful, 



THE DYNAMICS OF THE GOSPEL 



347 



why should it be thought a thing incredible that God can break a man off 
from his past, and recreate him in the image of righteousness and true 
holiness? — W. L. Watkinson. 

Jerry McAuley (543). 
One of the moBt distinguished preachers in New York said, as he 
stood in a great pulpit and looked down upon the face of a man lying 
In his casket at the foot of the pulpit, "Of all men who have worked in 
our city, I think this man was almost the greatest. I pay a tribute to 
bis memory. He has influenced the city profoundly in his mission." 
When he had finished his tribute, many came forward, and as they 
looked Into the upturned face, it was with real emotion. Then the poor 
of New York came to see their friend, and they filed past for a consid- 
erable time, some of them bending over and bathing his face with their 
tears. Finally, there came a great number of men each with a white 
rose, which they placed on the casket until it was covered, and then the 
roses fell on the floor. It was a monument of flowers reared to the 
memory of a man who had served three terms in prison. He had been 
called In his earlier days a violent criminal. He had been profane and 
ignorant. He was seated one night in gloom and misery In an alley of 
a city when a missionary came along and handed him a little tract. 
The poor fellow tore it In pieces and said with an oath: "If you want 
to help me give me your coat. You must see that I am freezing." Then 
the missionary, who was himself thinly clad, took off his own coat and 
gave it to him. This act of kindness almost broke the man's heart. 
Jerry McAuley, who was then deep In Iniquity and far from God, was 
wonderfully saved. Jesus Christ Is able to save to the uttermost them 
that draw near unto God through him. — J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. 

How God Works In Character (544). 

An artist was asked by a king to make him a man. A human figure 
was carved in marble, but was denounced as cold; painted on canvas, 
but condemned as lifeless; molded of wax, but derided as motionless. 
"Make me a man," cried the capricious monarch. Then the artist found 
a beggar, cleansed him, clothed blm, and brought him to the king saying. 
"O king, I could not make a man myself, but here is one whom God 
made, and I found." 

We feel that this artist wrought no wonder. But if be could have 
changed the beggar Into a prince, the ignorant into a wise man, the de- 
graded Into a person of nobility — then he would have been a true creator. 
In this age of social enthusiasm, we sometimes fancy that if we could 
feed all the hungry, clothe all the naked, and make comfortable all the 
wretched, the troubles of the world would be at an end, and the need 
for serious attention to the morals of the race would cease. But if char- 
acter remained unaltered, the result would be no marvel, and the misery 
of mankind would continue. 

But suppose It were possible for us to change life Itself, giving to 
men minds thoroughly furnished, wills which always chose the true, the 
good, and the beautiful, aspirations always centered upon righteousness 
— then we should work a miracle. 

This Is what God purposes to do for all who will submit to his fash- 



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ioning. He works in material more enduring than marble, more delicate 
than gold, more beautiful than ivory, more plastic than clay. He works 
in character and makes of it a product bearing the divine image and 
superscription. Paul says, "We are his workmanship, created in Christ 
Jesus unto good works." When the Christian is completed, he is won- 
derful beyond comparison. — Selected. 

The Master Musician (545). 
Once upon a time, in an ancient church, there was a great organ on 
which the people had not yet learned to play. One after another tried 
the instrument, drew out its stops and wakened some of its harmonies; 
but none of them dreamed of the wonderful music which lay hidden 
there. Then one day came the Master, sat like other men before the 
organ, and began to play; and the people below hushed themselves and 
whispered: "Is this the organ which we have owned so long — this which 
first sighs and weeps, and then thrills with passion and joy?" From 
that day the hope of their worship was to reproduce the music which 
was then revealed, and when the best of them did his best, they asid: 
"This makes us think of the Master's playing." Just such an instrument 
is human life, with its complex mechanism, its possible discords, its 
hidden harmonies, and many a philosopher and teacher has drawn from 
within it some of the music which was there. Then one day comes the 
Master. He knows, as the Gospel says, what is in man, and bending 
over human life, reveals the music of it; and from that day forth, the 
hope of the world has been to reproduce the harmony; and when the 
best of men do their best, we say: "This makes us think of the Master's 
playing." — Professor Peabody. 

The Power of God at Work (546). 

At a crowded meeting held in a large New York church the superin- 
tendent of the Rescue Mission, a tall, line-looking man, was asked to 
speak. He told of the growth of the Mission and of the work it tried to 
do, and then he closed with these words: "I was asked today as I came 
into this church, 'Have you ever seen a bad man become a good man?' 
Yes, my friends, I have. Sixteen years ago a man was leaning against a 
beer-barrel in a saloon in New York. His coat was in tatters. His shoes 
would hardly hold together. He had not a cent in his pocket or a friend 
in the world. He had broken his mother's heart, he had deserted his 
wife. No door was open to him — not even that of the hospital, for he 
was not sick; nor that of the morgue, for he was not dead. 

"Some one in the saloon said to him: 'You'd better go up to Forty- 
third street. There's a mission up there that you might work for a 
night's lodging.' The man went, and reeled into the mission half drunk. 
Before he went out again, twenty-four hours later, he had got hold of a 
hand that helped him to his feet. He had heard words of hope — of Him 
who came to seek not the righteous, but sinners. He had taken new 
heart, and begun a new upward climb. All that was sixteen years ago. 
Some of you know that man today. All of you have heard him speak." 

Then as the superintendent sat down the great audience realized 
that they had been told the result of Christ's forgiving power in the life 
cf that superintendent himself, Samuel H. Hadley. 



LXXI. GRACE. 



"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sin- 
ners, Christ died for us." — Romans 5:8. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. W. J. Blaikie commented on this theme as follows: 

How unlike the usual ways of subduing rebels was that taken by 
God! Daring insurrections against law and order commonly meet with 
tremendous retribution among men. "Clemency," we are told, "would 
be misplaced kindness; severity is kindness in the end. Show no mercy 
to old or young till you have stamped out the last ember of rebellion." 

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways above 
your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts." "God sent not his 
Son Into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through 
him might be saved." 

Did ever messenger from an offended king cause his advent among 
rebels to be proclaimed with songs of "glory to God in the highest, on 
earth peace, good-will to men?" 

What a gift God gave to the world when he gave his Son! What 
store of heaven's light and love and joy, of all that heals our disorders, 
brightens our life, sweetens the breath of society, mitigates the gloomy 
suffering and death and throws brightness on the eternal future, came 
into our world with him! O blind foolish world, that will not receive the 
gift, and like the poor worldings of Gadara, entreats God's Son to depart 
out of its coasts! 

* » * 

In preaching on this text Rev. Dr. Alexander Maclaren unfolded It 
along the following lines: 

What Proves God's Love? 

I. It 1b a strange thing that the love of God needs to be either proved 
or pressed upon men. L There never was, there Is not, any religion 
untouched by Christianity that has any firm grip of the truth "God is 
love." 2. Even among ourselves and other people that have drunk In 
some form of Christianity with their mother's milk, It is the hardest 
possible thing even for men who do accept that gospel In their hearts 
to keep themselves up to the level of that great truth. 

II. Notice the one fact which performs the double office of demon- 
strating and commending to us the love of God: "In that, while we were 
yet sinners, Christ died for us." Chrlst'B death Is a death, not for an 
age, but for all time; not for this, that, or the other man, not for a sec- 
tion of the race, but for the whole of us, In all generations. The power 
of that death, as the sweep of that love, extends over all humanity, and 
holds forth benefits to every man of woman born. 

III. Look at the force of this proof. Has It ever struck you that the 
words of the text, upon every hypothesis but one, are a most singular 
paradox? "God commended his love to us. In that Christ died for 
us." Is that not strange? What Is the connection between God's 
love and ChrlBt's death? la It not obvious that we must conceive the 



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relation between God and Christ to be singularly close in order that 
Christ's death should prove God's love? The man who said that God's 
love was proved by Christ's propitiatory death believed that the heart 
of Christ was the revelation of the heart of God, and that what Christ 
did God did in his well-beloved Son. 

IV. Consider what is thus proved and pressed upon us by the Cross, 
1. The Cross of Jesus Christ speaks to all the world of a love which is not 
drawn forth by any merit or goodness in us. 2. The Cross of Christ 
preaches to us a love that has no cause, motive, reason, or origin, except 
himself. 3. The Cross preaches to us a love which shrinks from no 
sacrifice. 4. The Cross proves to us and presses upon us a love which 
wants nothing but our love, which hungers for the return of our love 
and our thankfulness. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

To Save Sinners (547). 

A very striking method is now successfully employed for raising the 
cargoes of sunken vessels. A huge electro-magnet, operated from the 
deck of the vessel, is lowered to the submerged cargo, and if it be of a 
character subject to the influence of magnetism, it is attracted and 
lifted by this power, and thus easily saved. There is a power from on 
high which came to seek and save that which was lost. Down in the 
murky depths of the waters of sin this magnet of love draws to itself 
sinful souls, and lifts them by its power to the bright sunlight and pure 
air above. — The S. S. Chronicle. 

While We Were Yet Sinners (548). 

Some years ago, the Prince of Wales came to America, and there 
was great excitement about this Crown Prince coming to our country. 
The papers took it up and began to discuss it, and a great many were 
wondering what he came for. Was it to look into the republican govern- 
ment? Was it for his health? Was it to see our institutions? or for this, 
or for that? He came, and went, but he never told us what he came 
for. But when the Prince of Heaven came down into this world, he 
told us what he came for. God sent him, and he came to do the will of 
his Father. What was that? "To seek and to save that which waB lost." 
And you cannot find any place in Scripture where a man was ever sent 
by God to do a work in which he failed. God sent Moses to Egypt to 
bring three millions of bondmen up out of the house of bondage into 
the promised land. Did he fail? It looked, at first, as if he were going 
to. If we had been in the Court when Pharaoh said to Moses, "Who is 
God, that I should obey Him?" and ordered him out of his presence, we 
might have thought it meant failure. But did it? God sent Elijah to 
stand before Ahab, and it was a bold thing when he told him there 
should be neither dew nor rain; but didn't he lock up the heavens for 
three years and six months? Now here is God sending his own beloved 
Son from his bosom, from the throne, down into this world. Do you think 
he is going to fail? Thanks be to God, he can save to the uttermost, and 
there is not a man in this city who may not find it so, If he is willing to 
be saved. — Moody. 



GRACE 



351 



The Central Truth (550). 

Sit down In front of Jesus Christ, and take your time; and, as you 
look, you will learn that which no hasty glance, no couple of minutes 
in the morning before you go to work, no still more abbreviated and 
drowsy moments at night before you go to sleep, will ever reveal to you. 
You must "summer and winter" with him "Ere that to you he will seem 
worthy of your love." 

Christianity is doing no more than your shop, your business, your 
profession, or than your studies, your pursuits, your recreation even, 
demand, when It demands the exclusion of much in order that you may 
truly hold it. 

Astronomers put what they call diaphragms into their telescopes, 
which narrow the field of vision. What for? In order to secure a 
sharper definition. And we have to do the same thing, to shut off a 
great deal, to do as a man does that is looking at the white gleam, for 
instance, away yonder, questionable on the horizon, which may be the 
foam of a billow, or a gull's wing, or the ship that he is expecting. He 
puts his hand to his brows, In order to shut out everything else, and 
Axes his gaze. 

That is what we have to do. Look off, if you would look on. Look 
away from the intrusive and vulgar brilliancy of "the things that are seen 
and temporal." You will never see the stars in a street blazing with 
electric lamps; and you will never see Christ as you ought to see him, if 
your thoughts are full of the world. — Maclaren. 

Christ and the Poets (551). 
Of the vanity of things human and of the supremacy of the things 
of Christ, Tennyson sings: 

"Our little systems have their day; 
They have their day and cease to be; 
They are but broken lights of Thee; 
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they." 
Of the triumph of Christ over the blindness of men Whittler beau- 
tifully writes: 

"The world sits at the feet of Christ, 
Unknowing, blind, and unconsoled; 
It yet Bhall touch its garment fold. 
And feel the heavenly alchemist 
Transform Its very dust to gold." 
Harriet Belcher Stowe put Into fitting words the calm, sweet peace 
that dwells In a soul rooted and grounded in Christ amid all the outward 
■torma that assail It: 

"Far, far away the roar of passion dleth. 
And loving thoughts rise calm and peacefully; 
And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flleth. 
Disturbs the soul that dwells, O Lord, In Thee!" 
The great Shakespeare In speaking of Palestine says: 
"In those holy fields 
Over whoso acres walked those bleHsod feet 
Which, fourteen hundred years ano, wore null'd 
For our advantaxe on the bitter cross." 



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D. M. Mulock sings: 
"God rest you little children; but nothing you affright; 
For Jesus Christ, your Saviour, was born this happy night. 
Along the hills of Galilee the white flocks sleeping lay, 
When Jesus, the child of Nazareth, was born on Christmas day." 

Salvation for Sinners (552). 
Jesus has a message for the sinner; it is the message of forgiveness 
and restoration and a Father's love. There is no sinner for whom he 
has not his word of comfort to speak. Let none say he Is so low or 
base or vile as to be beyond the comfort of the Gospel of Christ. "The 
blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin." "From all 
sin!" The heaviest load of sin rolls off the heart at the foot of Christ's 
Cross. The despairing publican, smiting upon his breast and crying 
"God be merciful," becomes transfigured, as he listens to the words of 
Christ, into a rejoicing saint. — Rev. J. D. Jones. 

Christ Our Salvation (553). 
A poor shoemaker in his dreary little shop in a great city one day 
found by accident that there was one little place in his dark room from 
which he could get a view, through a window, of green fields, blue skies, 
and far-away hills. He wisely set his bench at that point, so that at 
any moment he could lift his eyes from his dull work and have a glimpse 
of the great, beautiful world outside. From the darkest sick room and 
from the midst of the keenest sufferings there is always a point from 
which we can see the face of Christ and have a glimpse of the glory of 
heaven. If only we will find this place and get this vision. — Selected. 

God's Unspeakable Gift (554). 
I do not know how to illustrate the incarnation. The only thing I 
ever thought of is very imperfect. You know how the coast line of the 
ocean runs from Maine to Cape Cod. Outside is the great ocean. What 
is inside those little curves? The ocean, of course. You call one the 
ocean, and the other the harbor or the bay, but it is all one ocean. The 
water is the same; it tastes the same, looks the same. Here is the 
great eternal God, filling all space, only in one place he flows into a little 
curve, Jesus of Nazareth, but it is the same God, whether he is there in 
heaven, or here in Jesus. Oh! I hope you don't understand this! It 
would be such a little thing if you and I understood it! — Alexander Mo- 
Kenzie. 



LXXII. HEAVEN AS AN INCENTIVE. 



"The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compa 



with the glory which shall be revealed in us." — Romans 8:18. 



Rev. Frederick W. Shannon, D.D., used the following peroration in 
a sermon on this theme: 

With Paul, then, let us be of good courage. Now all these things 
maybe cannot be fully told in "matter molded forms." But we do know 
this: We are condensed mysteries — luminous personalities flashing forth 
the suppressed brilliance of Deity — whose expanding life will break out 
In ever new and heavenly beauties to harmonize with all the golden 
splendor which is yet to be revealed in God's boundless universe. Why, 
i* I refuse to believe in the heaven life on account of its present mys- 
teries to me, I should not take another step, nor utter another word, nor 
sleep another night, for these ordinary things, upon reflection, are pro- 
found mysteries, and are possible only after God had worked upon this 
earth for numberless ages. As the glory of dawn streamed into the 
room, a little girl with golden hair and cherry-red cheeks, stood pouring 
water from a glass down upon a begonia. After watering the plant she 
said: "Now I'll put it In the sun." What a chain of mysteries — a glass 
of water, a pot of dirt, a blooming plant, a shining sun, a radiant child! 
Suppose I had begun talking to her about the chemistry of nature. With 
beaming face, I think she would have answered: "but I'm going to put 
this pretty flower in the sun." Suppose I had repeated to her the scien- 
tist's statement of the elements of water, still I think she would have 
replied: "I'm going to put this flower in the sun." And if you ask 
me how can these heavenly things be I reply: See how a little water, a 
few spoonfuls of dirt and a genial sun, all working together upon a 
little dead seed, can woo and win It Into the breathful sweetness and 
stainless vermilion of a flower. But better than any analogy in the 
heavens or upon the earth are the spirit rythmed words of Him to 
whom the universe hath yielded up all Its riddles: "Let not your heart 
be troubled; ye believe In God; believe also In me. In my Father's 
house are many mansions; If It were not so, I would have told you; for 
I go to prepare a place for you." Thus will we Blng Frederick Lawrence 
Knowlea' song of our old house and the new: 



This body Is my house — It Is not I; 

Herein I sojourn till, In some far sky, 

I lease a fairer dwelling, built to last 

Till all the carpentry of time is past. 

When from my high place viewing this lone star, 

What shall I care where these poor timbers are? 

What though the crumbling wnlls turn duBt and loam — 

I shall have lr>ft thorn for a larger home! 

What though the rafterB break, the BtanchlonB rot. 

When parfh has dwindled to a glimmering spot! 

When thou, clay cottage, fallest, I'll Immorso 




ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 



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My long-cramped spirit in the universe. 
Through uncomputed silences of space 
I shall yearn upward to the leaning Face, 
The ancient heavens will roll aside for me, 
As Moses monarch'd the dividing sea. 
This body is my house — it is not I; 
Triumphant in this faith I live, and die. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. Samuel L. Campbell concluded a sermon on this subject aa 
follows: 

I used to be much afraid of a thunderstorm; indeed, the feeling was 
common to the children of our neighborhood; and with reason, for what 
would in these later days be called a cyclone one day swept across the 
green valleys where we lived, tearing up the orchards and unroofing the 
house, the track of which can be seen to this day. So sometimes as we 
sat in school, of a summer afternoon, and the air began to grow dark 
with coming clouds, we would all be seized with a kind of nervous ter- 
ror; then, when the tempest burst, the wind roared, the rain poured, the 
hail rattled against the windowpane, and those awful peals of thunder 
shook the ground, all the school exercises would be suspended, and it 
was sometimes as much as the teacher could do to keep us from crying 
out in very terror. It will always remain upon our minds, I think, the 
memory of those thunderstorms. But as I now think of them, they 
were always of brief duration, and, about the time school was out, would 
clear away. How we used to shout then, we who had lately been so 
frightened and so still; and, as we rushed from the door, we would call 
one to another, and say, "Where's the thunderstorm?" — "Where's the 
thunderstorm?" And just opposite the schoolhouse there was a great 
hill which gave a fine echo, and so the call would come back to us, 
"Where's the thunderstorm?" And to the call we always got an answer; 
for the grass that carpeted the pasture-ground that spread close around 
us looked up and said, "Part of it is in me," and the lilac or the sweet- 
brier that grew by our old-fashioned house door nodded Its head and 
shook off the raindrops and sent up a fresh fragrance as it said, "Part 
of it is In me;" and the warm pools of water by the roadside through 
which we splashed with our bare feet, and the brook that had been set 
singing among the green pines on the hillside said, "Part of it is in 
me." But, grandest of all, that brilliant rainbow setting its feet at the 
river brink, and arching its head up along the hillside, up beyond the 
hilltop, up across the retreating cloud, up into the clear sky and shining 
there as with all transfiguration glory, answered : "Part of that black and 
terrible thunderstorm is in me." 

This, my brethren, if we will only have it so, is what becomes of all 
those terrors that sometimes so alarm us; they but make our grass 
green and bring forth the fruits and flowers of paradise; for a moment 
they gloom our atmosphere and desolate the scene, but, as they pass, 
they set a rainbow in our sky that joins heaven and earth together. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
"The Glory Revealed to Usward" (555). 
I have read of an old sculptor who had among other pieces of work 



HEAVEN AS AN INCENTIVE. 



355 



In his workshop the model of a beautiful cathedral. It was covered 
with the dust of years, and nobody admired it, although it was an exact 
model inside and out, of a fine cathedral. One day the old attendant 
placed a light inside the model, and its gleam shone through the beauti- 
ful stained glass windows. Then all stopped to admire its beauty. The 
change that was wrought by the light within was marvelous. Many of 
the righteous are hidden In obscurity today. None so poor as to do them 
reverence. But when the Lord comes the light within will blaze out, 
and they shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. 
Then the beauty of the Lord will be seen upon them, and the glory of 
the Lord will be revealed through them. — Talking Sunbeams. 

The Secret of Happiness Amid Trials (556). 
Meeting one of the saints upon the street the salutation was, "How 
are you?" He answered, "I have a headache and toothache and back- 
ache, but I am happy in the Lord." Why not? A man ought to rejoice 
evermore, if he is at peace with his God. A holy life ought to be a happy 
life in all kinds of weather and in every possible condition and environ- 
ment. Boswell says that Samuel Johnson would not allow anyone to say 
that he or anyone else was happy. "It Is all cant," he would say. "The 
dog knows that he Is miserable all the time." Johnson had a friend who 
once told him that his wife's sister was a really happy woman, and the 
lady herself being present, he asked her if that were not true. She de- 
clared with great emphasis that it was, and that she was happy all the 
time. Then Samuel Johnson, the savage creature that he some- 
times was, made reply, "If your sister-in-law Is really the contented being 
she professes herself, sir, her life gives the He to every research of hu- 
manity; for she Is happy without health, without beauty, without money, 
and without understanding." Then he went away growling and said to 
his friend, "I tell you the woman Is ugly and sickly and foolish and 
poor; and would It not make a man hang himself to hear such a creature 
say she was happy?" Did Samuel Johnson think that happiness must 
depend upon health, wealth, beauty and knowledge? Would he assert 
that a sick man or a poor man or an ignorant man or an ugly man could 
never be a happy one? The poor and sick and humble saints know 
better. They know how to rejoice In the Lord even in the midst of 
human mishaps and miseries. They have found the Christian's secret of 
a happy life in a heart that is filled with love to God and Is set to do 
his will. — Northwestern Christian Advocate. 

The Glory (557). 

I once saw the dear daughter of a Christian family dying. She was 
a beautiful Christian and had for years been active In Christian work, 
but her sickness was of such a nature as to Induce despondency, and at 
last she gave up hope; for weeks before her death her countenance had 
been inexpressibly sad, and the shadow only deepened as the end drew 
near. I stood at her bedside when she passed away; sight had failed 
her; hearing had failed her; speech had failed her; and still that sad, 
■ad look remained; when suddenly, as If an angel's wing had swept 
over It, her countenance changed. I stepped to an adjoining room and 
called some friends and said, "Come quickly, you must all see this," and 



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they all saw It; that expression of perfect peace with which she passed 
away. That was her last expression, and it remained there when we 
closed the casket to carry her to her rest. — Campbell. 

Sustained by Hope's Vision (558). 
Not long ago there lived an old bed-ridden saint, and a Christian 
lady who visited her found her always very cheerful. This visitor had 
a lady friend of wealth who constantly looked on the dark side oi 
things, and was always cast down although she was a professed Chris- 
tian. She thought it would do this lady good to see the bed-ridden saint, 
so she took her down to the house. She lived up in the garret, five 
stories up, and when they had got to the first story the lady drew up 
her dress and said, "How dark and filthy it is!" "It's better higher up," 
said her friend. They got to the next story, and it was no better; the 
lady complained again, but her friend replied, "It's better higher up." 
At the third floor it seemed still worse, and the lady kept complaining, 
but her friend kept saying, "It's better higher up." At last they got to 
the fifth story, and when they went into the sick-room, there was a nice 
carpet on the floor, there were flowering plants in the window, and little 
birds singing. And there they found this bed-ridden saint — one of those 
saints whom God is polishing for his own temple — just beaming with joy. 
The lady said to her, "It must be very hard for you to lie here." She 
smiled, and said, "It's better higher up." Yes! And if things go against 
us, my friends, let us remember that "it's better higher up." — Selected. 

The Waiting Inheritance (559). 
We say of a minor he has so much property. Buried in those Equi- 
table vaults across the river yonder are a billion dollars in negotiable 
securities. Ryan has 5100,000,000, the Harriman estate has $125,000,000, 
Belmont & Co. have $150,000,000, and so on. Now, there are heirs to 
these estates who are yet under twenty-one years of age. But their 
minorship does not nullify their ownership. The estate is ready and 
waiting for them, and when they cross the threshold of manhood and 
womanhood their wealth will be given to them. In some such way, 
Paul thinks of the waiting immediacy of our new house. Before the last 
pulsebeat had died into stillness, before the headman's ax had wholly 
cleaved his head from his body, even while his last breath was drying 
upon his motionless lips, Paul the magnificent, Paul the Christian gladia- 
tor, Paul the world-thinker and world-doer, Paul the Christian-winged 
Immortal had already moved into his new home, a millionfold more 
splendid than Nero's Golden House; and he began at once, I have no 
doubt, to help God and Christ and men and angels shine up heaven for 
you and me. — Shannon. 

The Nearness of the Glory-World (560). 

In the midst of all our talk of politics, our plans for the spring busi- 
ness or travel, and our aspirations for the future, some 1,600 of us who 
were foremost In all these plans and hopes have been, in a flash, pulled 
down on the Titanic into the depths of the ocean out of sight forever. 
Their plans, their hopes, their social prestige, their wealth, their po> 
litical ambitions and all their combined worth, personal and financial, 



HEAVEN AS AN INCENTIVE. 



357 



counted for no more than if they were so many rats In the ship. There 
Is a totally different perspective for life from that which we usually have. 
Which Ib the fundamentally right view of the life we are living and of 
the mysteries which are all about us? This crash of the Titanic against 
the Iceberg threw wide open the door between the seen and the unseen 
and laid bare to the eyes of everyone of us who has the sense to look 
at the solemn truth, the fact that the every day living of most of us 
takes no account of the most vital, the most fundamental and omni- 
present factB surrounding every one of us. — The Fitchburg Sentinel. 
When the Mists Have Rolled Away (561). 

When a boy, my father used to take me on his knee and tell me 
Btories of a land of brave men and fair women. When I grew older I 
read for myself in the pages of the greatest romances of all literature 
Btories of fair women and brave men — in my father's land. I had a 
great desire to see my father's land. One day In after years the oppor- 
tunity came. I traveled over the sea, but one night there came a great 
wind. The sea was tempestuous and I am a poor sailor. For three nights 
and three days we strove with the seas toward the shore of my father's 
land. The morning of the fourth day we were in the Irish Sea, and at 
1< st it was still. Toward evening I crept on deck and said to the cap- 
tain, "Are we almost there?" And he replied, encouragingly: "We will 
get in In the morning." Early in the morning I asked again If we were 
"almost there." And the captain replied: "In sound of shore, but not 
In Bight." And actually I could hear sounds off the shore I could not 
Bee. After what seemed a long, long time, I said again: "Captain, are 
we almost In?" "Why, man," he said, "we are in, as you will see when 
the mistB lift," and sure enough a wind swept down the Firth and 
drove the mlsta far out to Bea, and there we were in the Firth of the 
Clyde, while far away on every side stretched the green shores of Auld 
Scotia, my father's land — the land I had traveled so far to see. 

Some day — I know not when — I shall be on another sea. Another 
captain shall be my friend. And If, weary at the last, I go to him, he 
■hall say In answer to the question: "Am I almost there?" "When the 
morning cometh." And, If again, I cry for the shore he will say: "When 
the mistB have rolled away," and then some day the mlsta shall all bo 
rolled away, and around shall stretch on every side from eternity's 
shores the ever*reen hills o' the Land o* the Leal — my Father's land, 
your Father's land, our Father's land. — Rev. R. S. Inglis, D.D. 



LXXIII. CONQUERORS THROUGH CHRIST. 

"Nay, In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that 
loved us." — Romans 8:37. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. John Y. Ewart, D.D., says: It is marvelous how nearly omni- 
potent man can be with God's help. We are gradually finding out the 
secrets of nature and harnessing mighty natural forces into our service. 
We are also finding out the secrets that have been lying hidden in God's 
grace for millenniums and that we can do all things through Christ who 
strengthens us. The steam engine, the steamboat, the telegraph, the 
telephone and other great inventions are the trophies of man's triumph 
over nature, the partners of his power when linked with nature. Nature 
works through man in these stirring modern days to accomplish hitherto 
undreamed of results. But the triumphs of divine grace when working 
through men and women "meet for the Master's use" are exceeding 
abundantly above all we ask or think. 

Think of what God does in enabling a man to resist temptation. 
Some evil habit floors a man and makes a brute of him. But one happy 
day he sees his own weak, sinful, degraded self and sees also the 
gracious, all-powerful, all-loving Christ. He gives Christ the reins and 
that bad habit is distanced forever. 

Tnink of what God does in changing a man who is worldly, selflBh, 
godless. A complete transformation results. This man becomes peni- 
tent, humble, prayerful, willing to learn and to serve. The only expla- 
nation Is the presence of divine grace In his heart. 

Think of what God does in sustaining a soul called to go through 
deep sorrow. How calm and resigned she is, how patient and brave! 
It ia because she is conscious of the Infinite help of him who says that 
In all our affliction he is afflicted. Think of what God can do In reviving 
a half-dead church. 

* • • 

Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D., said: In all these things we are more than 
conquerors. 

L To be more than conquerors is to be triumphant conquerors, not 
merely getting through the battle or the trouble, but coming out of it 
with rejoicing, with Bong and gladness. Not only may we be conquerors, 
but If we are Christians we must be conquerors. Wo dare not yield. 
We know that the evil in us and the evil around us should not be allowed 
to overcome us; that appetites and base passions and bad tempers 
should not be permitted to rule us. 

II. But do not forget the closing wordB of St. Paul's statement: 
In all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that 
loved us." The text would not be true if these last five words were left 
off. We cannot leave Christ out of life and over In anything be true 
overcomers. The Roman Emperor saw the symbol of the cross blazing 
•n the sky and over It the legend: "By this shalt thou conquer." Before 
every young soldier of the cross, as he goea out to begin life's battlea. 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



shines the same symbol, with the same legend. "By this shalt thou 
conquer." "We are more than conquerors through him that loved us." 
s It is only through Christ that any of us can overcome sin or sorrow 
or trial. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Victorious Through Christ (562). 
He was a man who had once been picked from the gutter. The 
first time I called upon him I noticed his name on a brass doorplate, and 
beneath it a date. I asked him the meaning of the date on his door- 
plate. He replied: "That is my birthday." But as he was a compara- 
tively old man and the date a comparatively recent one, I was perplexed, 
until he came to my relief, saying: "That is the day on which I was 
born again. I put it on my doorplate, for I want no one who enters 
my home to remember anything about me before that day. I do not 
want God in heaven to remember anything about me before that day, 
and he has promised that he will not, that he will forget and blot out 
all my transgressions. And," pointing to his wife, "I do not want that 
good woman to remember me back of that day. Before that day she 
never had a happy day with me; since that day she has never had an 
unhappy one. Have you, mother?" And if you could have seen the 
proud and tender look upon her face as she replied, "No, William," you 
would have realized the genuineness of his conversion. I asked my 
Christian friend one day as he lay on his deathbed, a bed of intense 
suffering, what he thought this verse meant, "He that believeth in the 
Son of God hath the witness in him," giving it the revised rendering, 
so if there were any difference he would detect it. I will never forget 
the almost seraphic smile that swept the signs of suffering from his face 
for a moment as he said, placing his hand over his heart: "Oh, it just 
means that I have the witness in here that I am a child of God." And 
I recalled the word of Paul to the Romans in Chapter 8 and verse 16: 
"The spirit of God beareth witness with our spirits that we are the chil- 
dren of God." — R. S. Inglis, D.D. 

The All Sufficient One (563). 
"Can I do anything for you?" said an officer on the battlefield to a 
wounded soldier. "Nothing, thank you." "Shall I bring you some water?" 
"No; I am dying; but there is one favor you can do for me. In my 
knapsack there you will find a New Testament. Please open it to the 
fourteenth chapter of John and read that verse that begins, 'Peace I 
leave with you.' " The officer opened the book and read, 'Peace I leave 
with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto 
you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." "Thank 
you," said the dying man: "I have that peace; I am going to the Sav- 
iour; I want nothing more." — Theodore L. Cuyler. 

Grace Sufficient (564). 
The other evening I was riding home after a heavy day's work. I 
felt weary and sore depressed, when swiftly, suddenly, as a lightning 
flash, came: "My grace is sufficient for thee." And I said: "I should 
think it is, Lord," and burst out laughing. I never fully understood 



CONQUERORS THROUGH CHRIST. 



361 



what the holy laughter of Abraham was until then. It seemed to make 
unbelief so absurd. 

It was as if some little fish, being very thirsty, "was troubled about 
drinking the river dry; and Father Thames said: "Drink away, little 
fish, my stream is sufficient for thee." Or it seemed like a little mouse 
In the granaries of Egypt after seven years of plenty, fearing it might 
die of famine, and Joseph might say: "Cheer up, little mouse, my gran- 
aries are sufficient f©r thee." Again, I imagined a man away up yonder 
on the mountain saying to himself: "I fear I shall exhaust all the 
oxygen in the atmosphere. But the earth might say: 'Breathe away, 
O man, and fill thy lungs ever; my atmosphere is sufficient for thee.' " 

O brethren, be great believers! Little faith will bring your soula 
to heaven, but great faith will bring heaven to you. — C. H, Spurgeon. 

"He Breaks the Power of Sin" (565). 
This liberty is not a mere fiction, printed on paper or proclaimed from 
the pulpit. Does the slave who once toiled in the cotton field for his 
master under an overseer know that he is free when he goes forth to 
raise and harvest cotton for himself in his own field? Does the prisoner 
who endured years of imprisonment in a dark and foul dungeon know 
that ha is free when he is led forth through his prison doors into the 
pure air of liberty under the open sky, and permitted to go where he 
will? Inner bondage is as real as outer bondage. It is more painful 
Inner liberty is as real and as sweet as outer liberty. Spiritual freedom 
Is better than physical freedom. Free from the condemnation of sin, 
free from the dominion of sin; free from the tyranny of sinful habits; 
free from sinful desires and affections. "Tho bluod of Jesus Christ 
cleanseth from all sin." 

"He breaks the power of canceled sin, 
He sets the prisoner free; 
His blood can make the foulest clean; 
His blood availed for me." 

— The Christian Advocate. 

Our Omnipotent Defender (566). 

In the great struggle which is ever being waged between right and 
wrong, truth and error, we are constantly in danger of leaving the mlght- 
lest factor on the side of right and truth out of the reckoning. 

We forget that right has an omnipotent Defender. We forgot that 
wrong hat an omnipotent Antagonist. 

We may not understand Just why the final victory Is deferred; but 
we know that It Is sure. And it Is because we lay so much stress upon 
our own meager contribution to that final result, and fail to reckon ou 
what the Qreat Antagonist has promised and Is amply able to do, that 
we often tremble for the outcome. 

Why Worry (567). 
What a vast portion of our Hvph Is spent In anxious and useless fore- 
bodings concerning the future! Present Joys, present blessings slip by, 
and we mlaa half their sweet flavor, and all for the want of faith In him 
who provides for the tiniest Insect In the sunbeam. Oh, when shall we 



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learn the sweet trust In God our little children teach us every day by 
their confiding faith in us? We, who are so mutable, so faulty, so irrit- 
"able, so unjust, and he who is so watchful, so pitiful, so loving, so for- 
giving! Why can not we, slipping our hand into his each day, walk 
trustingly over that day's appointed path, thorny or flowery, crooked or 
Btraight, knowing that evening will bring us sleep, peace and home? — 
Selected. 

A Glorious Fact (568). 
A young Scotch clergyman was visiting an old lady who knew 
her Bible pretty well. I suppose he thought it was his duty to leave a 
text with her; so he said, before he left the room, "What a lovely prom- 
ise that is, 'Lo, I am with you alway!'" She replied, "Hoot, mon, it's 
no a promise; it's just a fact!" It is not merely a promise, it is just the 
declaration of a glorious fact. It is the "I Am," whose presence is such 
an inspiring certainty. — Dr. Guinness. 

Our Safety (569). 

Like Alpine climbers, our only safety is in steadfastly fixing our 
gaze on him, our Guide, and following step by step the path he trod that 
he might know all the dangers and difficulties that beset our way. And 
we may be sure he will never lead us further or faster than we can 
safely follow. — Rose Porter. 

Strong In His Strength (570). 
But Paul said "I." "I can do all things through Christ which strength- 
ened me." He recognized the fact that he had an important part to 
perform in all God'B work for lost men. "I am debtor," he said, "to the 
Greeks and the barbarians." His conscience is loaded with a sense of 
obligation to all for whom his Saviour died. And such was his great 
willingness to throw himself and all his splendid powers into the breach 
that he said upon another occasion: "Neither count I my life dear unto 
myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which 
I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of 
God." 

Every church member should rouse himself to a sense of responsi- 
bility for the real success of the church to which he belongs. And he 
should be willing to make sacrifices for the Church which Christ has pur- 
chased with his own blood. To evade this responsibility or shift it to 
other shoulders is cowardly and disloyal. Men and women are the wires 
which God charges with the electricity of his saving grace. Through 
consecrated flesh and blood that saving grace is to find its way Into the 
hearts of the wayward and the lost. We ought to consider it a distin- 
guished honor to be co-laborers with God and should purge ourselves 
of everything that makes us non-conductors of the divine electric stream. 
— Ewart. 



LXXIV. UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 



"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercle» of God, that y« ( 
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, 
which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this 
world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." — Ro- 
mans 12:1, 2. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
In a sermon on this theme Rev. Dr. Selby said: A consistent resis- 
tance to worldly rules and methods of life Is the logical Issue of a be- 
liever's consecration. It Is binding upon all who present themselves as 
living sacrifices to God upon the altar of service, to show that they are 
superior to the shaping pressures and movements of an unbelieving age. 
The Idea of separation from the world is indissolubly paired with that 
of self-dedication to holy uses. Of course these old similitudes of the 
altar and the sacrifice have to be translated into the terms of a spiritual 
dispensation. Separation doeB not mean a change of place for the body,"** 
but a new attitude of mind, the turning towards new objects. The life 
presented as a tribute of worship in the temple loses its place in field or 
stall, and can no longer be bought and sold In the market. Its dedica- 
tion in tbe one sphere implies its final removal from the other. The 
frequenter of Idol shrines assumes that the victim has a double, in 
virtue of which the finer essence of Its life can be presented to the 
spirits, whilst the flesh remains at the service of Its earthly owner. 
Some Christians might be under the influence of the same Idea. They 
act as If they had a duplicate life, one side of which can be surrendered 
to God, whilst the other la reserved to do the bidding of the world. It 
is true the veil is rent, and the secular has been made sacred by the 
great redemptive crisis; but the altar for the whole burnt-offering, which 
was an emblem of the consecrated life of God's people, has its counter- 
part in the unseen sanctuary, and still demands the undivided devotion 
of a life. If you are servile to the will of the world, and It still drags 
you captive In Its train, the sanctifying altar of the spiritual temple 
cannot touch you with Its efficacies. Fashion your habits and activities 
to meet the whims and caprices of the passing hour, and the altar will 
surely reject the poor figment of your dedication, as the riven altar at 
Bethel spewed forth the sacrifice placed upon 1L 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Giving Up to God (571). 
The author of that remarkable book, "The Varieties of Religious Ex- 
perience." reminds us of the old story of a man who, on a dark night 
and along an unknown way, found himself slipping down what he con- 
cluded was a precipice. Ho caught hold of a branch that arrested his 
fall, and clinging to It remained for a long tlmo In agony; but finally, 
pnd with a despairing farewell of life, he relaxed his hold and fell — six 
Inches! Had he given up earlier, much of that terrible experience would 
have been spared him. It Is an old story, and proachers have used It, 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



and wisely used it to say that, as the mother-earth — so close to this 
man's feet, had he known it — received him, so will the Everlasting Arms 
receive us if we fall absolutely into them, and give up relying on our 
personal strength, as if that were our only safeguard and avail. — Rev. 
Ambrose Shepherd, D.D. 

Livingstone's Vow (572). 

I will place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in 
relation to the kingdom of Christ. If anything will advance the interests 
of that kingdom, it shall be given away or kept, only as by giving or 
keeping of it I shall most promote the glory of him to whom I owe all 
my hopes in time and eternity. May grace be given me to adhere to 
this. — David Livingstone, in his Journal, May 22, 1853. 

How to Enjoy Religion (573). A preacher, approaching his new ap- 
pointment, asked a boy: "Do people at Millbrook enjoy religion?" 
"Them that has it does," was the reply. — Bishop C. H. Fowler. 

Whole-Hearted Religion (574). 

An ancient legend tells of a maiden that was sent to Alexander 
from some conquered province. She was very beautiful, but the most 
remarkable thing about her was her breath, which was like the perfume 
of richest flowers. It was soon discovered, however, that she had lived 
all her life amid poison, breathing it, and that her body was full of 
poison. Flowers given to her withered on her breast. Insects on which 
she breathed perished. A beautiful bird was brought into her room and 
fell dead. Fanciful as this story is, there are lives which in a moral 
sense are just like this maiden. They have become so corrupt that every- 
thing they touch receives harm. Nothing beautiful can live in their 
presence. On the other hand, the Christian life is one whose warm at- 
mosphere is a perpetual benediction. It is like the shadow of Peter, 
having healing power, so that all on whom it falls are enriched by it. 

There were two artists, close friends, one of whom excelled in land- 
scape painting, and the other in depicting the human figure. The former 
had painted a picture in which wood and rock and sky were combined 
in the artist's best manner. But the picture remained unsold — no one 
cared to buy it. It lacked something. The artist's friend came and said, 
"Let me take your painting." A few days later he brought it back. He 
had added a lovely human figure to the matchless landscape. Soon the 
picture was sold. 

There are some people whose religion seems to have a similar lack. 
It is very beautiful, faultless in its creed and its worship, but it lacks 
the human element. It is only landscape, and it needs life to make it 
complete. No religion is realizing its true mission unless it touches life 
at its every point. — J. R. Miller, D.D. 

Things That Will Not Blend (575). 

"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon," said the Master; yet how 
cunningly and persistently we attempt the impossible! In curious ways 
we seek to combine the spiritual and the carnal, the consecrated and the 
profane, the divine and the worldly. 

Chemists are continually discovering the possibility of blending sub- 



UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER 



365 



Btance8 once thought incompatible; but the Christian spirit, and the spirit 
of the world, are infinitely disparate, and can never be reconciled. 

How much easier and happier is the Christian life when once we 
have effected a complete severance from the world! Henry Drummond 
says truly, "The most of the difficulties of trying to live the Christian life 
arise from attempting to half live it." To be ap out and out disciple is to 
enjoy peace and strength which to the double-hearted are entirely 
strange. — Watkinson. 

How the Body Registers Soul Conditions (576). 

"Be ye transformed," says the Apostle, "by the renewing of your 
mind." The outer life will change itself according to the changes of the \ 
spirit. The very face will become more and more a copy and index of 
the mind and heart; and all that is outward will slowly assume a certain 
shining, corresponding to the shining beauty of the thoughts within. 

For is it not very true in everyday life that the outward man, if 
carefully observed, is a sure index of the soul? Sometimes you know ' 
what a man is by one glance at him; and if we had a quicker perception 
we should always know. The facial lines are as a book in which the 
keen eyes would read all manner of hidden secrets. The miser has a 
peculiar type of face, hard, narrow, shriveled like his own soul. The 
gambler cannot hide his vice; it is written on every feature. The sensu- 
alist betrays his guilty secret by the very motions of his lips and eyes. 
Passions and hatreds and lusts, however skilfully buried, worm their 
way to the surface and crawl over the face, leaving their traces there. 
A fair woman loses all her beauty if the heart entertains a long time evil 
tempers and ugly thoughts. Not suddenly — sometimes it takes years to 
bring about the correspondence between the face and the heart, but 
sooner or later the correspondence is made complete. And the plainest 
face becomes In time beautiful to look upon, as if the Master had thrown 
his own shadow there, if the heart within has entertained divine thoughtB 
a long time and held secret fellowship with the Lord of life. 

What Is true of the face is true of the speech, of the actions — nay, 
of the whole outer world. All things change as our spirits change. The 
very world Is narrowed down to the measure of our narrowing souls.i 
broadened as our hearts are enlarged, beautiful or ugly, healthy or dis- 
eased, as our hearts are shaped by God or the depraving forces around 
us. St. Paul goes to the root of the matter when he says, "Be ye trans- 
formed by the renewing of your mind." — Rev. J. J. Greouough. 

Unreserved Love (577). 
When Cordelia Is reproached by King Lear for not being as warsn In 
her protestations of love for him as her sisters have been, she answers: 
"Why have my sinters husbands, If thoy say 
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed, 
That lord whoso hand must take my plight shall carry 
Half my love with him, half my care and duty." 
Most of us have encountered a similar difficulty when we have come 
to the words, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." 
If he claims all, where Is any to come In for our own flcnh nnd blood? 
This difficulty disappears If wo understand tho meaning to be that we are 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



to love the Lord with as much heart as we are capable of: with affec- 
tions trained to their utmost. Some day the record-breaking trotter of 
today will cover a mile with all the speed he is capable of; but he will 
have enabled himself to distance on that track all records, including 
his own, by the good work he lias done on every other track. Let that 
serve as a parable for us. The heart, like every possession of ours, is 
capable of almost endless development. If it had at the outset the ca- 
pacity of a teaspoon, we may erelong by diligence give it the capacity 
of an ocean-bed. Some day, we dare believe, we shall love God, with an 
ardor by contrast with which our love of today will seem pitiably small. 
—Rev. A. B. Austin, D.D. 

Consecration and Concentration (578). 

"Expulsive Power of New Affection." Chalmers' sermon on this 
theme was suggested by a stage-driver's remark. He whipped his leader 
just as he passed a big white stone, at which he always shied, to give 
him something to think of till he passed the stone. The secret of holi- 
ness is preoccupation with the things of God. A mind and heart filled 
with God make sin comparatively powerless. — Pierson. 



i 



LXXV. THE VISION OF THE HOME 
PREPARED. 

"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of 
man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 
But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit." — 1 Corinthians 
2:9, 10. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Robert Francis Coyle, D.D., in presenting the claims of the 
other world upon this present life, said, by way of Introduction: Quite 
recently the professor of divinity of the University of Cambridge put 
himself on record as follows: "Among all the changes which have come 
over religious and theological teaching within living memory, none seems 
to me so momentous as the acute secularizing of the Christian hope, as 
shown by the practical disappearance of the other world from the ser- 
mons and writings of those who are most in touch with the thoughts 
and aspirations of our contemporaries." 

This tallies with my own observation. The present-day literature of 
Christianity — our religious magazines and papers and the deliverances 
of the pulpit — are singularly empty of the "other-worldly." The empha- 
sis is upon the here and now. What lies within the veil is to a large 
extent Ignored, or if touched on at all, is touched very lightly. The 
gravity of this condition deserves attention, for Just as certainly as the 
future life fades out of our thinking and out of the thinking of people 
in general, there will come a corresponding laxity in moral life. 

How little those who talk about getting on well enough with one 
world at a time think of what they are saying! The tiniest flower that 
grows must have the sun and the moon and all the stars of heaven to 
minister to it; and if a daisy needs so much, how much more does a 
man need? Cut off the influences and helps of other worlds and our 
earth would be a 8ahara. Not a shower would ever fall or a stream 
overflow. And If it is nonsense to talk about one world at a time In the 
material universe, in the light of history and of Scripture and of the 
practical effectB of this kind of talk upon men, it Is even greater non- 
sense to talk about one world at a time in the universe of morals. As 
the attractive power of the sun and the moon produces the tides and 
helps to sweeten and purify the sea and makes it a great reservoir of 
health for the globe, so it Is the pull and the spell of the other worldly, 
of the unseen and the eternul, that Bave society from moral anarchy and 
ruin. 

No one familiar with the Scriptures can fall to note the practical 
use that Is made In the word of God of this teaching about the future 
life. Nowhere Is It dealt with as a theory, or a conjecture, or a specula- 
tion, or something merely of academic Interest, but always as intended 
to bear with solemn and unescapable force upon the life that now is. 
Wherever It Is referred to It Is meant to relate to conduct — to warn men 
against vicious living by holding up before them the Inevitable harvest, 
OX to Inspire them to struggle on In face of a thousand difficulties by 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



assuring them of the rewards of victory. 

Give the cup of cold water; minister to the needs of the hungry 
and thirsty; be feet for the lame; be eyes for the blind; be a friend of 
the friendless; visit the fatherless and the widows; keep yourself un- 
spotted from the world, and by and by the King will say, "Come, ye 
blessed of my Father." On the other hand, "Depart, ye cursed," will be 
the sentence of those who are selfish and cold-hearted, heedless of the 
wounded, personally immoral and impure. Thus the future life is ap- 
pealed to to produce holiness here. The other worldly is called into 
court to help to make men what they ought to be in this world. We are 
to make constant use of the leverage of a future life to lead men into 
the kingdom of God. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. Alexander Maclaren uttered the following concerning some 
of the things prepared: Shall we stop growing in heaven, or Is our 
entrance there not much rather the beginning of a new stage of that 
growth, which has no end? There, too, will not our loftiest attainments 
be as a platform on which we can stand to reach up to what is still 
higher? Will not the attitude of spirit which is inseparable from all 
advancement and all health here, be the attitude for the other world, 
too? Shall we sit there, with nothing to wish for, drowsy amid languid 
contentments? Or shall we there, as now, feel the truest sense of life 
in aspiration and motion towards unattained but possible good and good- 
ness? Shall we not then possess all that hope by which now we are 
saved, with only the loss of the painful sense of incompleteness? May 
not a fair vision of what we shall be gleam before us, which shall excite 
wishes without tumult, consciousness of non-possession without pain, 
aspiration without the pang of yearning, certainty without fear, and 
work without effort? Will not the glories that are to be revealed ex- 
ercise their attraction over us then? Will not this still be the descrip- 
tion of our being — "reaching forth unto those things that are before?" 
I believe that thus we shall live through all the eternities that are before 
us, growing wiser, nobler, stronger, greater; plunging deeper into God, 
and being more and more filled with more and more of him. So we shall 
move for ever as in ascending spirals that rise ever higher, and draw 
ever closer to the throne we compass and to him that dwells alone. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
What Heaven Will Mean (579). 

Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her little booklet, "He's Coming Tomor- 
row," tells of a worldly man of wealth who hears the tidings of the Mas- 
ter's coming and says: "I don't know, wife, how you feel; but I don't 
like this news. I don't understand it. It puts a stop to everything that 
I know any thing about." 

"O John!" said the woman, turning towards him a fice pale and 
fervent, and clasping her hands, "how can you say so?" 

"Well, Mary, it's the truth. I don't care if I say it. I don't want to 
meet — well, I wish he would put it off! What does he want of me? 
I'd be willing to make over — well, three millions, to found a hospital, if 
he'd be satisfied and let me go on. Yes, I'd give three millions — to buy 
off from tomorrow." 



THE VISION OF THE HOME PREPARED. 



369 



"Ib he not our best friend?" 

"Best friend!" said the man, with a look of half fright, half anger. 
"Mary, you don't know what you're talking about! You know I always 
hated those things. There's no use in it; I can't see into them. In fact, 
I hate them." 

She cast on him a look full of pity. "Cannot I make you see?" she 

said. 

"No, indeed, you can't. Why, look here," he added, pointing to the 
papers, "here is what stands for millions! Tonight it's mine; and to- 
morrow it will be all bo much waste paper: and then what have I left? 
Do you think I can rejoice? I'd give half; I'd give — yes, the whole, not 
to have him come these hundred years." She stretched out her thin 
hand towards him; but be pushed it back. 

"Do you see?" said the angel to me solemnly; "between him and her 
there Is a 'great gulf fixed.' They have lived in one house with that gulf 
between them for years! She cannot go to him: he cannot come to her. 
Tomorrow she will rise to Christ as a dewdrop to the sun; and he will 
call to the mountains and rocks to fall on him — not because Christ hates 
him, but because he hates Christ," 

Again the scene was changed. We stood together in a little low 
ettic, lighted by one small lamp, a broken chair, a rickety table, a bed 
in the corner where the little ones were cuddling close to one another 
for warmth, as they talked in soft, baby voices. "When mother comes, 
she will bring us some supper," said they. "But I'm so cold!" said the 
little outsider. "Get in the middle, then," said the other two, "and we'll 
warm you. Mother promised she'd make a fire when she came In, if 
that man would pay her." "What a bad man he is!" said the oldest 
boy: "he never pays mother if he can help it." 

Just then the door opened; and a pale, thin woman came in, laden 
with packages. 

She laid all down, and came to her children's bed, clasping her 
hands in rapture. 

"Joy! Joy. children! Oh, joy, Joy! Christ is coming! He will be 
here tomorrow." 

Every little bird in the nest was up. and the little arms around the 
mother's neck: the children believed at once. They had heard of the 
good Jesus. He had been their mother's only friend through many a 
cold and hungry day, and they doubted not he was coming. 

"O mother! will he take us? He will, won't he?" 

"Yes, my little ones," she said softly, smiling to herself: "He shall 
gather the lambs with his arms, and carry them in his bosom." 

Recognition In Heaven (580). 
Though some of the formB of our earthly life may not be repeated 
there, there will bo remembrance, and friendship and love. There will 
be reunions of scattered families, resumptions of suspended intercourse, 
remaking of broken circles. Dante, hla heart filled with an Immortal 
love for Beatrice, was right when ho wrote: "Thus I believe, thus I 
affirm, thus I am certain It Is. that from this life I shall pass to another 
better, there where that lady lives, of whom my soul Is enamored." But 
that expectation would have brouRht to him no comfort had ho doubted 



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that he would know her, any more than it would have been a solace to 
David to he assured that if his dead child could not return to him, he 
could go to it, had he not believed that among the myriad children that 
throng the streets of Paradise he would recognize his own. Well-known 
lines of Whittier's that have fallen with soothing power on so many hearts 
stricken with grief over the departure of loved ones would seem only 
hollow mockery were it not for the implicit faith that the meeting which 
they foretell will be accompanied by recognition. 

"Yet Love will dream and Faith will trust, 
Since he who knows our need is just, 
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 
Alas for him who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress trees! 
Who hopeless lays his dead away, 
Nor looks to see the breaking day 
Across his mournful marbles play! 
Who hath not learned in hours of faith 
The truth, to flesh and sense unknown, 
That Life is ever Lord of Death, 
And Love can never lose its own." 

— Selected. 

The Call of Our Departed (581). 

There are few indeed who have lived long in this world, and have not 
stood by the bed of the dying. There are many who have seen a Chris- 
tian friend or brother depart — who have looked on such a one as life, 
but not love, ebbed away — as the eye of sense grew dim, but that of 
faith waxed bright and brighter. Have you heard such a one, in bid- 
ding you farewell, whisper that it was not forever; have you heard such 
a one tell you so to live, that death might only remove you to a place 
where there is no dying; and as you felt the pressure of that cold hand, 
and saw the earnest spirit that shone through those glazing eyes, have 
you not resolved and promised that, God helping you, you would? And 
ever since, have you not felt, that though death has sealed those lips, 
and that heart is turning back to clay, that voice is speaking yet, that 
heart is caring for you yet, that soul is remembering yet, the words it 
last spoke to you? From the abode of glory it says, "Come up hither!" 
And if we go to the grave of a loved friend, who bade us, when dying, 
sometimes to visit the place where he should be laid when dead — if you 
hold a request like that sacred — tell me, how much more earnestly 
should we seek to go where the conscious spirit lives than where the 
senseless body moulders? Tf day after day sees you come to shed the 
tear of memory over the narrow bed where that dear one is sleeping — 
oh, how much more should every day see you striving up the way which 
will conduct you where the living spirit dwells, and whence it is ever 
calling to you, "Come up hither!" It was the weak fancy of a dying 
man that bade you come to his burying-place ; but it is the perpetual 
entreaty of a living seraph that invites you to join it there! — "The Sober 
Thoughts of a Country Parson." 



THE VISION OF THE HOME PREPARED. 



371 



"No More Curse" (532). 

The sailor longing to set sail passes to and fro upon the shore, 
waiting the return of the tide, for when the tide returns the ship shall 
clear the harbor, and fly before the wind, and hasten home, and man 
can calculate the return of the tide; the astronomer waits upon his 
watch-tower, and notes in the heavenly places a planet or a comet, and 
by signs he can forecast the return of a luminary to its place in these 
skies; the feet of affection pace the stones of the station, waiting the 
return of the train, that the weary heart may be refreshed by the old face, 
and man can calculate the return of a train. But what of the return of 
a soul, nay, the return of a race of souls to their home and their alleg- 
iance, like weary birds returning to their rest? Then the strain of a 
glad universe shall be, "No more curse, no more pain, no more separa- 
tion of lovers and friends, no more sickness, no more sighing, and no 
more death!" "They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sigh- 
ing shall flee away." — Rev. E. Paxton Hood, D.D. 

Heaven's Intellectual Quickening (583). 

One of the attractions of heaven to St. Paul, we have seen, was the 
Increase of knowledge. I do not know If there are many minds on which 
this acts as a motive, I rather fancy that the majority are attracted to 
heaven by the heart, rather than the head, because they are expecting 
to be reunited there to those from whom they have been separated in this 
world. Some feel the attraction most in the conscience, being weary 
of the struggle with sin and the clinging presence of a body of death, 
and longing for a condition of moral perfection. But the intellectual at- 
traction is well fitted to be a strong one, too. Many in this world have 
little opportunity of mental development, like those of whom It was 
sung: 

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 

Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; 
Chill penury represt their noble rage 

And froze the genial current of the soul. 
6uch will, in the next life, have ample opportunity to harvest the 
treasures of the mind which they have missed in this one. Intellects 
which have be^n dull and obstructed here will there experience a glori- 
ous emancipation; while those who in this world have been intellectually 
great, In comparison with the majority, but have felt themselves to be 
but as children picking up a few shells on the shore of truth, while the 
vast ocean stretched before them, unknown and unexplored, will there 
have ample leisure and boundless Bcope for the prosecution of their 
successful Investigations. — Prof. JameB Stalker, D.D. 



LXXVI. ETERNAL VIGILANCE THE PRICE 
QF VICTORY. 

"Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall. 
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: 
but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that 
ye are able; but will, with the temptation, also make a way to es- 
cape." — 1 Corinthians 10: 12, 13.^ 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, D.D., said: 

L In the tenth chapter of First Corinthians, you find a remarkable 
discussion of temptation, and again in James, but they do not cover the 
same ground. That in the tenth of First Corinthians is about escaping 
temptation, and the other is about enduring temptation. Now, look at 
them for a moment. First, 1 Corinthians 10:13: "There hath no temp- 
tation taken you but such as man can bear: but God is faithful, who 
will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with 
the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to 
endure it" 

Now turn to James 1:12-14, and let us get his testimony about en- 
during temptation: "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for 
when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which 
the Lord promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is 
tempted, 1 am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, 
and he himself tempteth no man: but each man is tempted, when he is 
drawn away by his own lust, and enticed." 

II. Temptation is the common experience of human beings. It Is 
absolutely impossible naturally to escape 1L As long as we are In the 
world we shall meet it. It will come from the world, from the flesh, 
from the devil. The subtlest of our foes is the self-life. You cannot ex- 
pect to escape, but there is no necessity of your being overcome by it 
as a child of God. "Greater is he that is in you than he that Is in the 
world." 

III. Inasmuch as there is a community of temptation, and you can 
not miss it, here is the first encouragement: God is faithful. It does not 
Bay God Is merciful or God is graciouB. Faithful is a word of obligation, 
and the Idea is there of the obligation on the part of God to stand by 
the tempted soul. Isn't that magnificent, that the moment you take 
your stand against temptation, the whole Godhead is behind you, and 
there can be no temptation too great, because no temptation can be 
greater than God? And he is faithful to you. He will stand by you. 
He regards hlmBelf as under obligation not to allow you to be tempted 
above that you are able to bear. Here Is for us a definite teaching that 
whenever we are tempted there is a way to escape, which God in his 
fidelity has provided. Look fbr the way of escape and go in It. 

♦ * * 

Rev. Dr. W. L. Watklnson commented on this verso as follows: In 
one place the Scriptures liken the life of man to the life of a tree; now 



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a tree may suffer by a lightning flash marriag it in a moment, or by 
a parasite slowly and insidiously strangling it. 

No sudden temptation can destroy us whilst we live at our spiritual 
best. It is said that lightning generally strikes the rotten tree. Let 
this be as it may, it is certain when fir tree or cedar of the King's garden 
falls some secret rottenness has eaten out the heart of it. 

No parasite, no creeping evil fastens upon those who abide in 
strength. Stealthy murderers wait all around, and watch their oppor- 
tunity to seize upon us, but in the glowing, growing life they find no 
lodgment, no minute vantage ground to which they may cling. With 
watchfulness, humility, and dependence we are safe wherever it may 
please God to bring us. Have I, however, fallen into condemnation? 
Peter's Lord is mine, and he will heal all my backslidings, and love me 
freely. Let me put his promise to the proof. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Underestimating Danger (584). 

A reckless man in a zoological garden once seized a venomous ser- 
pent by the nape of the neck and held it up before his companions. The 
man thought he had the serpent wholly in his power. But it began to 
coil its long body about his arm and then slowly tighten its grasp till 
the man in agony was obliged to drop his hold on its neck. Quickly 
then it turned and bit him, and soon the man was dead. 

He thought he was strong enough to play with the serpent, and then 
thrust it from him when wearied of the play. Many think they are 
strong enough to play with temptation of any sort, but they find sooner 
or later that the temptation has mastered them. "Watch and pray that 
ye enter not into temptation," said Christ. It is the entering into temp- 
tation which is to be guarded against. — Morning Star. 

The Unexpectedness of Temptation (585). 

Temptations never give us notice. Can we expect them to do so? 
The sailor does not expect to have notice of every gale of wind that 
blows upon him. The soldier in battle does not reckon to have notice of 
every bullet that is coming his way. By what apparatus could we be 
kept aware of every advance of the Evil One? The very essence of 
temptation often lies in the suddenness of it; we are carried off our 
feet before we are aware. Yet we must not say because of this, "I can 
not help it," for we ought to be all the more watchful and live all the 
nearer to God in prayer. We are bound to stand against a sudden temp- 
tation as much as against a slower mode of attack. We must look to the 
Lord to be preserved from the arrow which flieth by day and the pesti- 
lence which walketh in darkness. We are to cry to God for grace that, 
let the gusts of temptation come how they may and when they may, 
we may always be found in Christ, resting in him, covered with his 
divine power. — Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. 

Scrupulous Precautions (586). 

Sir James Herschel tells how, after his telescopes became famous, 
and were distributed quite widely through Europe, he began to receive 
complaints. Men said to him, in angry letters, "We do not see what 



ETERNAL VIGILANCE THE PRICE OF VICTORY. 



375 



you see." In his response to them he said: "Perhaps you do not take 
the care of your observations that I do," and he spoke of one thing, 
"Do you take care of the matter of temperature? The instrument with 
which I examine the stars must be of the same temperature of the stars 
as nearly as may be, and when I observe on a winter night I place my 
glass on the lawn at Greenwich, and let it stand there until the instru- 
ment comes to be of the temperature of the air. But beyond that," he 
said, "not only must my instrument be of the right temperature, but I 
must be. Oftentimes," he said, "I have been out in the winter air for 
two hours before I would open my glass, because I must come to be of 
the same temperature as my instrument itself." — Selected. 

Provision for the Unexpected (587). 
Life is full of illustrations of the need of provision for the unex- 
pected. Go along any river in summer and notice the height of the 
arches of the bridge over the low waters. Men build them high for the 
swollen torrent, the unusual, ready for the unexpected. There was a 
storm at sea, during which a sailor on watch at night was swept over- 
board. There were two men on watch together, and it was the one 
least exposed that the wave, leaping over the bow, swept away. When 
the captain was asked how that could be, he said, "Because the second 
man was holding on to nothing." The second man, like the five foolish 
virgins, made no provision against the unexpected. — Selected. 

Dallying with Temptation (588). 
Do not dally with temptation. Do not tarry in the presence of it. 
Do not do in thought the act to which you are tempted. Avoid the least 
thought of It The thinking has its immediate bodily effect and has its 
Immediate tendency to pass into act. — Henry Churchill King. 

Our Sole Protection (589). 

Jesus shows us the mighty power of the word of God to safeguard 
us from evil and the evil one by the "Parable of the Unclean Spirit" I call 
it the "Parable of the Empty Mind." For some reason the unclean spirit 
left the man once possessed and, the man was free from his influence. But 
finding no place to rest, the unclean spirit, after long wandering, came 
back and found the man unoccupied. Then he went In search of other 
spirits, and when he found seven such, all worse than he was, he came 
and with these entered the man again, and the last state of that man was 
seven fold worse than his first state. 

Christmas Evans, the Welsh divine, puts the play of his imagination 
on to this parable. He follows the outcast spirit in his wanderings and 
fills in the empty spaces of the parable. He says that the unclean spirit 
was kept out of other minds, because he found these filled with God's 
Word. As the uncelan spirit passed along the highway, he saw a plow- 
boy entering a field to begin the work of the day. He said: "Ah, here 
la a human house into which I mny enter and live. I will go and possess 
that lad. I will take the power of his youth, and I will make It a power 
for wickedness. I will use every faculty of his In the work of advanc- 
ing crime." As he drew near to enter the soul of the lad, he heard him 
singing one of the verses of the sacred psalm which the members of his 



376 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



home baa sung that very morning at family worship: "Wherewithal 
shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according 
to Thy Word." Not liking these words of the Book which filled the 
young man's heart, the unclean spirit said: "This place is too dry for 
me: I must go elsewhere." Going elsewhere he saw a schoolgirl on her 
way to school. She was a beautiful girl, sweet of face and graceful of 
form. "Ah." said the evil spirit, coveting her, "I'll work through her. 
I'll creep to her side and whisper into her ear an evil thought that will 
set her^&oul on Are and turn her into a beautiful tempter. Mighty for 
evil will she forever be." But as he drew near, he found her with an 
open Bible in her hand, writing on her memory as a motto for life these 
picturesque words of the One Hundred and Forty-fourth Psalm: "Our 
daughters shall be as cornerstones carved after the similitude of a 
palace." Rebounding as though he had struck one of the shields of God, 
he said: "There is no room for me here: I must look elsewhere for a 
habitation." 

At this instant he found himself in front of the church manse. The 
old minister of Christ, who had served the church forty years, without 
a stain upon his character, lay dying. "Ah," said the unclean spirit, 
"I will enter the soul of this man of God. True, my stay must be short; 
but I can do a deadly work. Now is the time of the old saint's weak- 
ness. I will create doubt within him. I will make him talk like a 
heathen and an unbeliever, and die under a cloud; and thus I will 
weaken the whole force of his long ministry." With wretched daring he 
entered the manse to carry out his horrible plan. But the man of God 
was saying with the intonations of unswerving faith: "Though I walk 
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou 
art with me. Thy rod and staff they do comfort me." 

It was as though the evil spirit had met God himself face to face. 
He fled in fear from the chamber of death, and stopped not until he 
reached the man whom he had so lately left. It was with joy that ha 
found his soul still untenanted; and it was with a determination never 
to leave him that he gathered seven companion spirits more wicked 
than himself and re-entered the man. — Rev. David A. Gregg, D.D. 

Failures Result from Relaxed Vigilance (590). 

Heart-keeping is much like house-keeping. There must be continual 
sweeping out of dirt and clearing out of rubbish — a daily washing of 
dishes, and a perpetual battle with all sorts of vermin. If heart-cleaning 
could be done up once for all, then the Christian might discharge all his 
graces and have an easy time of it. And just because the assaults of 
subtle temptations are so constant, and the uprisings of sinful passions 
are so frequent, and the task of keeping the inward man what it ought to 
be, is so difficult, many a one who begins a religious life gets discouraged, 
and makes a wretched failure. The question with every Christian is: 
Shall these accursed Amalekites of temptation burn up all my spiritual 
possessions, and over-run my soul? Shall outward assaults or inward 
weakness drive me to discouragement, and disgrace me before my Mas- 
ter and before the world? Or shall they drive me to Jesus Christ, who 
will give me the victory? — Theodore L. Cuyler. 



LXXVII. LOVE SUPREME. 



"But the greatest of these Is love." (R. V.)— 1 Corinthians 13:13. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Prof. Henry Drummond in his famous monograph of Love, says: 
Every one has aBked himself the great question of antiquity as of 
the modern world: What is the summum bonum — the supreme good? 
You have life before you. That is the burning question for you to face: 
What is the supreme object of desire — the supreme gift to covet? We 
have been accustomed to be told that the greatest thing in the religious 
world 's faith. That has been the key-note for centuries of the evan- 
gelical religion; and we have learned to look upon that as the greatest 
thing in the world. Well; we are wrong. If we have been told that, we 
have been told wrong. I take you to Christianity at its source; 1 Cor. 
13, and there we read, "The greatest of these is love." It is not an 
oversight Paul was speaking of faith just a moment before. He says: 
"If I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have not love, 
I am nothing." It is not an oversight, and it is not prejudice. A man is 
apt to recommend to others his own strong point. Love was not Paul's 
strong point There is a beautiful tenderness which the observing stu- 
dent can detect as Paul gets old — growing and ripening all through his 
character; but the hand that wrote "The greatest of these is love," 
when we meet it first, is stained with blood. Nor is Paul singular In 
singling out love aB the summum bonum. The three masters of Chris- 
tianity are agreed about it. Peter says: "Above all things have fervent 
love among yourselves." And John goes farther: "God Is love." 

* * * 

Newell Dwlght Hillis wrote: 

Love abides because It gives joy In service and turns the great mind 
Into the great heart. There are five hungers In men. I. There is the 
hunger for food and raiment, that gives harvest, tools, and industries. 
II. There is the hunger for knowledge, that gives schools, books, papers 
and literature. III. There is the hunger for fame, that gives office, rank, 
political parties and thrones of influence. IV. There is the hunger for 
beauty that gives the fine arts and makes utility blossom and fruit V. 
Finally, there is the hunger for affection, that gives homes, fireside songs, 
and one hundred thousand sweet flowers and fruits of service which can- 
not grow without lore. In vain the husbandman sows seed In February's 
frozen clods. But when the great lover comes, the harvest-making sun, ana 
melts away the frost, the earth opens her arms, takes the little seed In 
and broods It Into life; and out of the Bun-lover's warmth comes the 
shock and sheaf. The scholar shining with cold white light, patronizing 
the poor, holding the Ignorant In contempt, Is Impotent to Influence men. 
But whoever has a passionate love for the people, whoever yearns with 
compassion for the poor, seeing them as sheep that have no shepherd, 
has found a coldcn kcj^ to men's hearts. 



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G. H. Morrison wrote: 

It is a matter of infinite debate where precisely religion begins. Is 
it in fear of the darkness, in dread of the unknown; is it in some dim 
feeling of dependence? We may have our own thoughts on that matter, 
as a fascinating question of psychology; but wherever religion long ago 
began, it can never be perfect till it reaches love. If no relationship of 
earth is perfect till love has entered with its benediction, how can a 
man's relationship to God be perfect, if love is wanting there? For true 
religion is not a thing of doctrine, nor of eager and intellectual specula- 
tion: it is tho tie that binds the life on earth to the infinite and eternal 
life beyond the veil. I grant you that the distance is so vast there that 
you cannot gauge it by any earthly tie. I do not like that form of pious 
speech that is all familiar, and has no place for awe. Yet the fact re- 
mains that every earthly tie is but a shadow of our tie with God, and 
if these cannot be perfect without love, no more, you may be sure of it, 
can that. Only when a man can lift his eyes, and say with a cry of 
victory, 'God loves me;' only when he believes, though all be dark, that 
the God who reigneth is a God of love; only then does his religion be- 
come real, a very present help in time of trouble, a well of water in the 
burning desert, a cooling shadow in a weary land. 

It is just that and nothing else which makes ours the perfect re- 
ligion. For the perfecting of religion love is needed, and that love has 
been revealed in Christ. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Love the Mainspring (592). 
There Is nothing in all the world so brave as love; it will do and 
dare to the uttermost. When the last word has been said about the 
selfishness of mankind, the cruelty of ambition, the relentless persistence 
of hate, it still remains true that love outruns and outlasts them all. 
It is the mainspring of the world that keeps the whole machinery in 
motion. "Whatever things are sweet or fair, love makes them so." 
Wherever nobility, goodness, or heroism springs into life, love lies at the 
root. From the rose-vine planted by the garden wall, to the Christ 
uttering words of forgiveness from the Cross, it is all love's story. — 
Selected. 

Love the Master Motive (593). 

Raymond Lull was a brilliant student in the University of Mont- 
pelier. Later he became a professor there. He turned his back on his 
splendid prospects and flung his life on the Mohammedan world in the 
period when to preach Christ was to court death. A year and a half 
he was imprisoned in a dungeon. Twice he was banished from the 
shores of north Africa. At last, taken beyond the wall, he was stoned 
to death. As the stones wece falling upon him, before he became un- 
conscious, he said, "He that loves not lives not, and he that lives by the 
Life never dies." 

He was a great hero, a great Christian hero, and he gives us the 
secret of his heroic life in this great saying at his death. — Selected. 

Love Indispensable (595). 
Unless our hearts go out to people we shall never reach their 



LOVE SUPREME. 



379 



hearts. We may talk to them forever, but unless we have this loving 
sympathy we might as well be silent. It is possible to pelt people with 
the gospel, and to produce the effect of flinging stones at them. Much 
Christian work comes to nothing mainly for that reason. — Alexander 
Maclaren. 

Love the Remedy (596). 
There are two maxims of Goethe's which contain the pure gold of 
truth in one of the most trying relations of life — our relation to those 
who are developing gifts and capacities above us: "Against the great 
superiority of another there is no remedy but love;" and "To praise a 
man is to put one's self on his level." In these brief and pithy sayingB 
la contained the whole philosophy of a noble attitude towards superiority 
of all kinds— Hamilton W. Mabie. 

Love One Another (597). 
There is one debt that can never be discharged in such a way that 
the obligation to pay it is ended. That is the debt to "love one an- 
other." After we have made all payments of love that we are able, 
there still remains the obligation to love. With truth has it been said: 
"Every man has a right to our love. It is his due and our debt." The 
attitude of others to us, their lovableness or their unloveliness, does not 
release us from our obligation to love them. If God were governed 
in his love to us by our lovableness, we would be excluded from all en- 
joyment of his love. "Herein is # love, not that we loved God, but that 
he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 

Love's Fruitage (598). 
John Howard, the philanthropist, held that his "superfluities ought 
to give way to other men's conveniences; that his conveniences ought to 
give way to others' necessities, and that his necessities ought to glvo 
way to other people's extremities." And he not only held it, but acted 
upon 1L 

Lady Huntingdon, a woman of noble birth, sold her Jewels that she 
might support the college she had founded, erect chapels throughout the 
realm and support the preachers who occupied her pulpits, among whom 
was that favorite and eloquent sacred orator, George Whitfield, who, like 
a blazing meteor, swept over England and America, moving many to 
repentance and to a newness of life. 

Alexandra, now Queen-Dowager of England, after receiving at one 
time a choice bouquet from Queen Victoria, entered a soldiers' hospital. 
A flower falling from her bouquet wus picked up by an afflicted soldier, 
who impressed a kiss of gratitude upon It and handed it back to her. 
Struck by this, she retraced her steps to the head of the ward and 
passed down the whole length of It, bestowing buds and flowers on 
everyone she passed till all were gone. In that popular painting known 
as "Flowery Charity," the touching scene Is reproduced. Upon the mar- 
riage of her daughter, she took the lovely bride's bouquet off to a Lon- 
don children's hospital she often visited, and laid a flower on the pillow 
of each little patient 

At the Battle of Fort DonelHon, a sergeant seeing an enemy aiming 
at the captain's breast, sprang Instantly In front of his commander and 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



received the ball himself and fell back dead into the arms of the one 
he had saved. He had said before that such had been the captain's 
father's kindness to him that he would do anything to save his son. 

During a plague at Marseilles it was decided in a council of phy- 
sicians that there could be no rescue from the ravages of the fell dis- 
ease until someone should dissect a body and ascertain its seat within 
the system, but that it would be certain death to the operator. There 
was one, Guyon, skilled surgeon, who arose and said: "At daybreak to- 
morrow I will, in the interest of this community, make the examination." 
He retired to his room, made his will, and engaged in religious services. 
At early dawn he performed the operation upon the body of one who 
had died of the plague during the night. He put down each observation 
and at the close threw the paper into vinegar that the contagion might 
be dissolved, retired to a convenient spot and in twelve hours died. — 
Rev. W. W, Wilson, D.D, 



LXXVIII. THE RISEN CHRIST. 



"But now Is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of 
them that slept." — 1 Corinthians 15:20. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

In an inspiring sermon on the resurrection preached by Rev. Dr. S. 
Parkes Cadman, he said: Some mourn the loss of loved ones, oblivious 
of the truth that death is a seeming, and not a reality; it is as Martineau 
remarks: "God's method of colonization." Would you detain that suffer- 
ing one, or call him back again? Nay, for those who leave your house- 
hold, the bitterness is past, the strife is won, and ere they depart, they 
wish themselves away, and watch eagerly for the brighter shore, where 
they must presently make their landing. Our faith follows them into the 
heavenly places. Like Ellsha, as he beheld the ascending Elijah, we, 
too, have foretastes of their burning bliss and higher vocation. There is 
no separation between them and us save our sin. The nearer we live 
to God the nearer we are to them. The spotless and the undeflled walk 
with them in white. And when the days of our purification are accom- 
plished, though our outward man then perish, our inward man shall be 
renewed and fitted for the greater offices of heaven. Here, then, I make 
my stand with my people, in this magnificent hope, which is a staunch 
ship, conveying us from time to eternity. No puny human speculation 
shall tempt me to forsake the craft that has weathered every storm, 
and take to the crazy cock-boats that have been overturned a thousand 
times. I would as soon think of leaving the Lusitania in mid-ocean 
for a fragile skiff as I would of leaving the deathless fact of Christ's 
eternal and saving relations with man for metaphysical subtleties or 
esoteric cults. We do not so much accept the Resurrection as it accepts 
us. The power is not ours; it is in him who has entered into all our 
sufferings, and is now exalted above them. 

The unseen and the eternal are before you; their living forces are 
seen at the height of paramountcy in Christ Jesus. His sinleBsness 
raised him beyond the results of sin, and his triumph seals his redemp- 
tive ministry. In the hour when he came forth from under the grave 
clothes and gave visible proof to his nearest friends that he had arisen, 
rebuking their unbelief and dread, all he was and all he taught received 
the impress of God's approval. For had his crucified body remained in 
that Syrian tomb, it would have been the ghastliest sepulcher that his- 
tory has known. No battlefield where the slain lay In winrows could 
have been so fatal to human destiny. HIb largest and reiterated claims, 
his sayings concerning his own deathlpsaness and his power to bestow 
eternal life upon the world would have perished with his body. The 
bony grip of tho terrible hand of monstrous death would still press down 
alike on the best and worst of men. Save for Jesus, a fathomless gulf 
yawns at the feet of every living creature. Nothing Intervenes between 
us and blank nothingness, except the words, the deeds, the victory of 
our Master. 

* * » 



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1. Cor. xv. 12-19, prelude to above text, was treated by C. H, Spurgeon 
as follows: 

Certain great facts are the pillars of the faith. 
It is sad when these are denied by professors. 
The resurrection has been thus assailed. 
To deny this is to involve terrible results. 
Let us not tamper with any truth. 
If there be no resurrection — 

I. Christ is not risen. 

If impossible, he cannot be risen. 
If those in him, then not himself. 
If not Christ, not his people. 
If not his people, not Christ. 

II. Apostolic preaching falls. 

1. They were false witnesses. 

2. All they said must be suspected. 

3. Specially all they built on the resurrection. 

4. Paul and all of them put out of court. 
HI. Faith becomes delusion. 

1. They believed a lie. 

2. They risked their souls on a falsehood. 

3. It would not bear the trial. 

4. It would be useless soon. 

IV. They remained in their sins. 

1. There is no atonement made. 

2. There is no life in Christ. 

V. The godly dead had perished. 

1. They are yet in their sins. 

2. They cannot rise. 

3. Their whole confidence was a lie. 

VI. Our source of joy is gone. 

1. We have given up sensuous joys. 

2. We have learned superior things. 

3. We have had higher hopes. 
See where it all hinges. 

Not on our moral condition. 

Nor on our spiritual state. 

Nor on our sincerity and earnestness. 

Nor on discoveries or science. 

Believe then that it is most surely true! 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
The Lord Has Risen (599). 

He is become the first fruits of them that slept. This is the ground 
and glory of our hope. He tasted death for every man that we might 
have triumph over the last enemy. As he rose and is ascended to the 
Father, so shall we rise and ascend; for, as in Adam all die, so in Christ 
shall all be made alive. 

He is Son of man and Son of God. This is the surety of our faith. 
He was a man, tempted in all points, as we are tempted, yet without sin. 



$ 



THE RISEN CHRIST. 



883 



In this his manhood conquered. He was God. Ere he gave up the ghost 
upon the cross he prayed for his enemies and slayers: Father, forgive 
them; they know not what they do. He was God. When he died the 
heavens put on mourning, and the earth rocked with emotion. He was 
God. He came forth from the rock-hewn sepulcher, having finished his 
offering for sin and given the last touch of fullness and joy to the gospel 
of redemption and resurrection. Christ is risen from the dead. Our 
faith is not in vain. "Death is swallowed up in victory." "Thanks be 
to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." — 
Independent. 

Christ Is Alive! (600). 

Dr. Dale was once writing an Easter sermon, and, when halfway 
through, the thought of the risen Lord broke in upon him as it had 
never done before. "Christ is alive," I said to myself, "alive," and then 
I paused. "Alive," and then I paused again; "alive — can that really be 
true? Living as really as I myself am?" I got up and walked about, 
repeating "Christ is living;" "Christ is living." At first it seemed strange 
and hardly true; but at last it came upon me as a burst of sudden 
glory; yes, Christ is living. It was to me a new discovery. I thought 
all along I had believed it, but not until that moment did I feel sure 
about it. I then said, "My people shall know it; I shall preach about it 
again and again until they believe it as I do now." For months after, 
and In every sermon, the living Christ was his one great theme, and 
there and then began the custom of singing in Carr's Lane on every 
Sunday morning an Easter hymn. — Marcus Dods, D.D. 

The Presence of Christ (601). 

Once we were talking with a priest of the Roman Catholic church. 
He said: "There is no joy comparable to the glow and warmth of soul 
that follows the taking of the sacrament by the communicant. A de- 
licious warmth and glow, a holy radiance, is diffused throughout his 
breast by the living Christ whom he has just appropriated." The Pro- 
testant does not deny that Christ lives In the sacrament, hut he goes 
much further and says that he is in all places where his followers are. 
When we kneel at the altar he is there; when we gather in the chapel 
for common prayer he is there; when we pray in our secret chamber, 
he meets us there; when we walk through wood and field, climb high 
mountain or sail great seas, we find him there, especially wherever his 
children are serving, blessing, loving, sacrificing, there he Is, and he is 
with little children in their play. 

"We may not climb the heavenly steeps. 
To bring the Lord Christ down; 
In vain we sound the lowest deeps 
For him no depths can drown — 

"But warm, sweet, tender even yet 
A present help Is he, 
And faith hath yet Its Olivet, 
And love Its Galilee." 



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It is this universal presence of the risen Christ that fills our heart 
with joy. It Is the eternal joy of the Church. It is the cause of the jubi- 
lant note of Easter. Easter is not so much the celebration of the fact 
that no tomb could hold Jesus Christ, as it is of the great wonder that 
he is alive for evermore. And our joy songs celebrate not his ascension 
out of the grave into heaven, but the fact that he came back from death 
to dwell with his Church through the Holy Spirit. — Lynch. 

The Power of the Resurrection (602). 
To those who have never felt the power of Christ's resurrection, 
whose hearts have never rung true for God and duty, I recommend the 
study of the brave deeds done in the name of the risen Jesus; deeds be- 
longing to every age; deeds which have most improved the condition of 
the earth, and this despite the fact that frequently the doers were treated 
as the offscouring scum of the race. Despised, punished, martyred, their 
testimony is clear on one point — that an authority they could not with- 
stand determined their course and kindled their energies. Working evenly 
and calmly, it brought them to the scenes of their conquest and heroism, 
that men and nations might live again in their lives, fortified by their 
examples. Have you that power which robbed the grave of any terror 
and clothed Stephen's mortality with triumph? Could you have a more 
practical test than the opening of a closed gate beyond which is a di- 
vinely fulfilled, divinely employed self? What language concerning the 
state of the departed, or the hidden romance and fascination of the future 
state can surpass the earthly story of those who have been able to do 
what they most longed to do, because they had passed out of the king- 
dom of evil into this habitation of the sons of God? Is there no mark on 
St. Francis, St. Theresa, John Bunyan or Lancelot Andrewes which as- 
sures us that they have high origin and a princely outlook? Angels have 
never lived in their condition, nor contended as they contended. The 
chantings of these first-born spiritual beings are overwhelmed by the 
mighty anthems of the redeemed, who died and rose again with Jesus, 
who overcame the evil you draw to your breast, and in the strength of 
their King broke the bonds you fondle. Arise, I bid you, from low grov- 
eling attitude of soul, and Christ shall give you life. Here stands your 
Conqueror, who comes to set you free, to grant you songs for sighing and 
turn your night to day. — Cadman. 

The Resurrection (603). 

Of some experiences we can afterwards see that, however dark they 
were, they have now justified themselves to our satisfaction. Many a 
thing which we thought at the time was a crucifixion has proved to be an 
enthronement. But the difficulty comes when we cannot see that. It is 
when the event looks as black and hateful to us in the retrospect as it 
appeared in the prospect, when the sting of it still remains with no allevia- 
tion, when the sense of injustice does not yield — then is the time we need 
the truth of the resurrection. Here is the rent in the veil, 
which permits us to look upon the perpetual law of the spir- 
itual world. "Ought Christ to have suffered?" is answered by 
a tremendous affirmative. "Yes, he ought." How do we know 
he ought? By the greater good which has come out of it. But 



THE RISEN CHRIST. 



385 



now, suppose that you and I cannot see any good coming out of our 
losses and sorrow, as sometimes we may not see. What answer then can 
be made to vindicate these experiences to our own minds? Oh, it is the 
answer which the God of Easter gave to those fear-stricken disciples 
when, out of that awful collapse there came the serene conviction that 
Jesus Christ was not defeated, but victorious; that the Father he had 
said was good, was indeed in full command; that the kingdom of heaven 
was not a dream, but a mighty reality. And out of that seemingly hope- 
less wreck there rose the spirit of Jesus Christ and it went forth into the 
world, gathering men into its transforming power, creating new life and 
bringing in the purer, brighter day. This is the meaning of Easter. It is 
the witness it brings to the victoriousness of the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. Here is the unveiling of this permanent principle that 
out of all evil our Father is bringing a greater good. And here, too, is 
the answer God makes to us when we cannot see the good coming out of 
some of our dark experiences, when the blackness of night lingers and 
the dawn delays its light. "Oh, eyes that are weary and hearts that are 
sad." It is not Immortality alone that you most need. You need to see 
the God of Easter, you need to be able to believe, in the illumination of 
this great day, that God is in full command still and that sometime and 
somewhere he will cause you to know that your darkness will be ex- 
changed for marvelous light. 

In other words, Easter means that God, the God of Jesus Christ, la 
always and forever vindicating the human life that does his will — always 
and everywhere Justifying the spirit which was in his Son our Lord; 
alwayB and everywhere working to bring good out of evil and gain out 
of loss. — Rev. L. Mason Clark, D.D. 

Testimonies to Immortality (604). 
Max Muller said, "Without a belief In personal Immortality religion 
surely is like an arch resting on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an 
abyss." A scientist like Sir Humphrey Davy can say, "We know enough 
to hope for immortality, the individual immortality, of the better part of 
man." Southey said, "Faith in hereafter is as necessary for the intel- 
lectual as for the moral character." It is Wordsworth who speaks of 
"The faith that looks through death." Longfellow was enraptured with 
the idea, "Thou gloriouB splritland! Oh, that I could behold thee as thou 
art, the re-giver of life, and light, and love, and the dwelling-place of 
those beloved oneB whose being has flourished onward like a silver-clear 
stream into the solemn sounding main, into the ocean of eternity." It 
was Goethe who once remarked to a friend, "Setting, nevertheless, the 
soul is always the Bame sun. I am fully convinced it Is a being, of a 
nature quite Indestructible, and that Its activity continues from eternity." 
The great philosopher Kant, wrote, "The Bummum bonum then Is practi- 
cally only possible on the supposition of the immortality of the soul." 
John Flske, the evolutionist, gave expression to his belief thuB, "I believe 
in the Immortality of the soul, not In the sense In which I accept the de- 
monstrable truths of science, but as a supreme act of faith In the reason- 
ableness of God's work." Again he says, "Each new discovery but places 
man upon a higher pinnacle than ever and lights the future with the 
radiant color of hope." — E. F. Wiest, D.D. 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



The Great Lesson (605). 
A recent periodical has a striking reproduction in color called "The 
Poisoned Pool." Two ranchmen, lost in a Nevada desert, almost crazed 
by thirst, see a pool. One starts toward it, but the other makes a des- 
perate effort to restrain him, recognizing from its greenish sheen that it 
is impregnated with arsenic. It is an eloquent sermon. Men — immortal 
souls, destined to live in time and in eternity — are lost in sin, and in 
danger of losing the blessedness which may be theirs for all eternity. 
Win them; get them to consent to have God's Spirit set the stamp of 
heaven on their souls. And when the stars shall have faded out and the 
sun become a cinder, their cups of gladness will still be running over in 
the Father's house of many mansions. This is the supreme Easter teach- 
ing after all. 

Analogies From Nature (606). 

Here in my study is a cocoon. Months ago I watched the grub weav- 
ing its own mausoleum. Within that cocoon today there is a chrysalis, 
which I am hourly expecting to emerge in an entirely new form from 
that which now is. Once it was a grub, which began to spin for itself a 
new covering, then came a change and we have what became a chrysalis, 
and now in this chrysalis there is something beginning to move and to 
change and gradually working its way out of the shell which has envel- 
oped it, until one day I shall see the flutter of wings and there will come 
to view something a thousand times more beautiful than it now is. 

Whether or not, if one looking at the grub could see the butterfly In 
it, I do not know, but I do know that that which was a grub, then a 
chrysalis, is gradually becoming a butterfly. Here we have an existence, 
a new life, under new conditions, with a new environment, absolutely 
different from that which we had before. From the analogy of the cocoon, 
one can conceive that the soul will throw off the clothes that enfold it, 
and, like the butterfly, will rise into space and instead of a cave, a grave, 
for its existence, there will be a whole hemisphere. — Rev. N. Carter 
Daniell, D.D. 

Our Attitude Toward Death (607). 

Our attitude toward death — death the inevitable — will have much to 
do with determining our experience in life. Do we merely thrust it from 
our minds as an unwelcome intruder? 

Or have we accepted Christ's glorious adjustment of the whole matter 
for us, and do we rest placidly in this? A young Scotch girl, taken ill in 
this country, knowing that she must die, begged to be taken back to her 
native land. On the homeward voyage she kept repeating, "O, for a 
glimpse o' the hills o' Scotland ! " Before the voyage was half over it was 
evident that she could not live to see her native land. One evening, just 
at the sun-setting, they brought her on deck. Someone said to her, "Is 
it not beautiful?" "Yes," but I'd rather see the hills o' Scotland." 

For a little while she closed her eyes, and then opening them again, 
and with a look of unspeakable gladness on her face, she exclaimed, "I 
see them noo, and aye they're bonnie." Then, with a surprised look, she 
added, "I never kenned before that it was the hills o' Scotland where the 
prophet saw the horseman and the chariots, but I see them all, and we 
are almost there," Then closing her eyes, she soon passed away. 



LXXIX. LIVING EPISTLES. 



"Ye are our epistle, written In our hearts, known and read of all men." — 
2 Cor. 3:2. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. Wilton Merle Smith in preaching on this theme said: Truth 
is hidden and unseen without personality, but let the truth charge and 
possess the personality, and it flashes on the world with the power and 
eloquence of inspiration. Truth leaps to utterance only in personality. 
Personality becomes burning eloquence only when inspired by truth. 

And this today is the power of Christian life and Christian charac- 
ter. It is truth enforced by the power of personality. God does not teach 
Christianity by the stars. It finds living utterance only in the lives and 
at the lips of Christians. This is what Christ meant when he said, "Ye 
are the light of the world." The power of Christianity illustrated in life 
is not alone the power of truth tried and proven, but of truth manifested 
and vivified by personality. This today is the grandest power on earth. 
Men put their shoes from off their feet before one, who, inspired and 
thrilled by truth, is intensely and deadly in earnest. Evil cowers and 
shrinks away before the eye that flashes the truth and the brow that is 
illumined by it. Truth, which in the furnace of deep conviction has been 
fused and forged with personality, is and must be a living, burning power 
in the world. In this way a single Christian may be like John the Bap- 
tist, a burning and a shining light, flashing the truth he lives from every 
window of the soul. 

• * * 

The following eloquent summary of this truth is by Rev. John T. 
McFarland, D.D. : Christ came again to live in the lives of his followers. 
And ho his larger life has been lived out in Christian history; the record 
of the centuries is his continued biography. He has lived again In the 
saints of all ages; the beauty and glory of his character have been illus- 
trated in the lives of all who have received him into their hearts. The 
sanctity of his holy birth has thrown a blessed light over the motherhood 
and infancy of the world. Ills feet have pressed the soil of every land, 
and his lips have uttered the speech of every tongue in those who have 
gone forth as his heralds. HiB meekness, his patience, his tenderness, his 
sincerity, hiB unselfishness, his love have appeared again in millions of 
illumined faces. In multiplied deeds of kindly charity, in self-sacrifices 
and noble self-denials, in forgiveness and in bonds of brotherly love. He 
has stood by the world's beds of pain and laid his tender touch upon the 
sick and suffering, and many a soul drifting out Into the deep mystery of 
death has seen again hlB Bmile of hope and cheer in the bended face of 
tome minister of mercy. The old miracle of the multiplied loaves and 
flsheB has been repeated over and over again In the generous charities 
which have responded to the cry of hunger; and many a Magdalene has 
recognized him again in the pitying look that is without scorn, and the 
pure, strong hand extended In kindly help. He has borne again and again 
his heavy cross, and gone to martyrdom amid flames and blood In those 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



who have witnessed for the truth before judges and kings, and has risen 
again in the repeated triumphs of his cause. His voice has been heard in 
the great reformers who have called the generations to repentance, and 
his love has expressed itself in the great philanthropists who have taken 
the world's woes upon their hearts, and his purposes have been unfolded 
and carried forward in the great world-wide enterprises of his kingdom. 
This has been continued manifestation, continued and cumulative revela- 
tion — manifestation of the Christly character in redeemed humanity, and 
the revelation of the divine purposes in the unfoldings of history. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. Raymond said: If the profoundest Influence of our lives 
may be unconscious and private, what manner of persons ought we to be? 

I. We see the necessity for each in his own individual way of entire 
consecration to that which is highest and noblest. If not alone our words 
but also our deeds, our faces and our frames, our smiles and our sighs, 
our gestures and our gait, our manners and our mantles, be, unconsciously 
to ourselves, the representatives of the attributes of that God whom we 
profess to reverence, of that Christ by whose name we call ourselves, is 
it a matter of little moment what shall be even the wording of our com- 
pliment, or the tone of our greeting? No half way religion merely for 
Sundays or at public worship — nothing but whole-hearted service during 
all the week days, during all our play as well as work, will rescue us from 
an unconscious and private influence for evil. 

II. We see the necessity of early consecration. All methods that are 
spiritual are apt to influence the inner motives first; the outer actions 
afterwards. As a rule, it takes time, and a long time often, for the love 
within the soul to mold the external bearing of the man into full conform- 
ity with itself. Better begin early in life, then, before habits have become 
fixed, and when it is easy to form new ones. 

III. We see the necessity of continual reconsecration; of consecra- 
tion keeping pace through all our lives with the increase of our knowl- 
edge and the broadening of our interests. We are Christians when we 
begin to follow the Christ, no matter with how faltering faith, how feeble 
love, how tottering footsteps. But, remember, not until we reach the 
standard of our Lord himself, "till we all come in the unity of the faith 
and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the 
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," shall our unconscious and 
private influence be all that it should be. Not until then shall we cease, 
in some material matters, to misrepresent the character of the Christian, 
and need to plead the mercy of God because we mock him with our im- 
perfect service. Remember that, aside from what can be gathered from 
sources far less influential, our friends and the world about us can never 
reach a higher standard of life than we and our friends and the world 
about us set for one another. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
The Pattern-Maker's Rule (608). 
My chum was an apprentice in the pattern shop. Sometimes I would 
eat my lunch with him, and then together we roamed about the shop, 
studying the new machines as well as the old ones. But one of the 
things that strongly impressed me was his set of "shrinkage" rules. I 



LIVING EPISTLES. 



389 



discovered that every pattern was made larger than the mould was in- 
tended to be, because when that pattern was put into the sand, and the 
mould was cast, the casting came out smaller than the pattern, because 
of the shrinkage in the cooling metal. For cast-iron the rule was made 
an eighth of an inch larger to the foot; for brass, three-sixteenths, and 
for steel, one-quarter of an inch. 

But so our models and our Ideals always suffer in the work of em- 
bodiment. Beethoven tells us that his beautiful symphony is but an 
empty echo of the heavenly music he heard in his dream. It lost its 
divinest charm when he transferred it to manuscript. Emerson says, 
"Hitch your wagon to a star." It may be easier to build castles in the 
air than to construct huts upon the ground; but the man who never has 
a vision cannot even build a hut that will really be worth while. The 
dreamer has his place in the world's work, for every machine and every 
great enterprise was dreamed out before it was worked out. But dream- 
ing and doing must go together. Each by itself alone makeB man either 
a drone or a drudge. 

Especially should the intensely practical man — that "hard-headed" 
fellow — learn to center his thoughts on things that are not always to be 
found in the work-a-day world. It will give him a broader outlook, and 
it will round off some of those sharp corners that sometimes irritate hia 
fellows. 

That pattern-maker's shrinkage rule taught me that if my life was 
to square itself with the plans laid out for me by God, so that it would 
harmonize and fit in with other worthy lives and plans, my ideal as to 
what I should be and do must be higher and better than the average, for 
those ideals would suffer grievously when transmuted into practical every- 
day living. If my ideals were higher than the average, perhaps I would 
make a pretty good, ordinary Bort of a fellow. 

An art student once fell asleep over the task given him by his mas- 
ter. As he lay there the master came into his Btudio, and with a swift 
glanco saw the narrowness of the student's unfinished work. Taking a 
crayon he wrote across the face of the canvas the single word "Am- 
plius" — larger. When the young fellow awoke he grasped his master's 
idea, and as he realized how cramped had been the vision of his work, he 
received a new inspiration, and later he became one of the world's great- 
est painters. 

As JesuB Christ looks Into every man's life he writes across it the 
word "larger" — fuller. He himself said, "I am come that ye might have 
life, and that ye might have It more abundantly." It would truly be a fine 
thing to measure up even to the best that has already come to us In our 
visions, for If we were one-half as good as we know how to be, we would 
be twice as good as we are. — Rev. Charles Stelzle. 

Influence for Good and Evil (609). 
A single grain of Iodine will give color to 7.000 times its weight of 
water; so, spiritually, one sin may affect the whole life. If the evil that 
assails us were as frightful In Its aspect as in Its essence, we should run 
little danger from Its assaults; but too often It besets us In fair forms 
and In dazzling colors, and herein lies our peril. And this evil is not con- 
fined to our own lives but Involves others. — Selected. 



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The Face Speaks (610). 

A man carries in his face the argument of his life. We hear today 
of specialists in face-architecture; beauty doctors, experts in washes and 
cosmetics, who will clarify your skin, remove its wrinkles, give to your 
nose the fashionable angle — procure you, in short, a new face for money. 
'Tis a stucco business at best, at which nature, the true artist, silently 
laughs. The face made in Bond street does not wear well. Ladies' 
maids, who see it of mornings, have their opinion of it. Meantime, in 
high disdain of this kind of performance, there is going on another proc- 
ess, the process of spiritual law. The artists here are hidden in the soul. 
They work with the surest of touches, which none can mistake. Their 
materials are the character, the thought, the daily deed of the man him- 
self. They catch his portrait and paint it on his features. There, on 
those few inches of surface, lies his life record. There is no contradic- 
tion of it possible. High thoughts, noble impulses, clean actions work 
themselves into those inches, filling them with their own quality. Base- 
ness, too, of all sorts sets here its image and superscription. How search- 
ing is that word of Emerson: "What you are speaks so loud that I cannot 
hear what you are saying!" — J. Brierly. 

His Wife's Example (611). 

An old man told me that there was nothing which had so influenced 
his life as a thing which his wife did on the night of their marriage. She 
handed him a Bible and said, "We'll have the reading." He had never 
prayed aloud in his life, but when the chapter was ended she knelt down 
and he had to kneel, too, and pray. That was a good beginning, and the 
Greek proverb says that "the beginning is half of the whole." — Dr. David 
Smith. 

Responsibility (612). 

In the Wierz Gallery at Brussels there is a picture called "Napoleon's 
Welcome to Hell." It is the most frightful picture I ever saw. The great 
captain is just entering the infernal gates; and from the gloom in the 
back-ground emerges a throng of his victims; men with crippled limbs 
and blood streaming down their faces; women bereaved with fatherless 
children in their arms; all with outstretched hands giving him welcome 
to the regions of endless night. 

A Woman in the Office (613). 
A clean-minded young college man was given charge of the work of 
purchasing small supplies for a concern in the Middle West. All day long 
there passed through his office a stream of salesmen. Most of them were 
fellows of intelligence, dignity and clean conversation. But a certain por- 
tion had false conceptions of selling methods, and resorted to familiarity 
and vulgar stories. The tone of the office seemed to be getting lower 
and lower when the young man had been there several weeks. The vulgar 
and profane elements among his visitors were not only distasteful to him 
but stayed longer than was necessary for the transaction of business, and 
took up his time. 

Matters were apparently getting beyond his control altogether when 
he followed a tip dropped by an older man, and had his stenographer's 



LIVING EPISTLES. 



391 



desk moved into the same room with his own. Immediately the whole 
situation changed. Visitors had to talk within earshot of a young woman. 
Profanity and vulgarity ceased automatically. The tone of the place 
was raised to a decent level. Discussion was held so strictly to business 
details that the time given to salesmen every day was cut squarely in 
half. — Selected. 

Influence (614). 

A man may be persuaded to shame or glory, as the case may be, by 
the example of his neighbor. One person afflicted by blinding fear may 
turn a hundred men into a panic-stricken mob or he may convert them 
into a throng of heroes through their very horror of his conduct. And 
one man who has established his moral equilibrium quickly can instantly 
convey fortitude to the others. Courage and cowardice both like com- 
pany. — Selected. 

Character's Enchantment (615). 

There Is always a certain amount of enchantment about a beautiful 
character. We all know what it Is to meet those whose quality and 
beauty of character we admire and esteem. How it thrills us with the dig- 
nity of its gracious mystery, its rare, delicate sympathy, its natural charm. 
Everyone In this transitory life of ours has in his or her mind the ideal 
of what he or she would like to be, and the loftier and nobler the ideal, 
the more godlike will the character become. Each character, with its 
beautiful thoughts and beautiful actions, is an exquisite proof, a living, 
practical witness on earth of the power and glory of God. 

What are the effects of a strong and beautiful character upon those 
with whom it comes in contact? In the first place, the divine inspiration 
which It continually inspires in the hearts of others toward the love of 
moral beauty. In the second place, the example of such a character, with 
Its tremendous influences for good, which cannot be overestimated. It 
shines forth with radiant beauty like some bright serene star, guldlnc 
with the glory of Its light the footsteps of wanderers, lest peradventure 
they stumble through the darkness of the world. — Selected, 



LXXX. SANCTIFIED TRIALS. 



"And lest I should be exalted above measure . . . there was given to 
me a thorn in the flesh . . . My grace is sufficient for thee."— 
2 Corinthians 12:7-9. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Frank B. McAllister, in The Congregationalist, treats this theme 
as follows: On old Spanish coins may be seen the pillars of Hercules 
with the motto surrounding them, "Ne plus ultra," that is, "nothing 
beyond." When these coins were struck, Spain owned both sides of the 
Mediterranean and imagined there was no hand beyond the waste of 
water stretched westward. There came a day, however, when a Genoese 
sailor pointed bis little fleet of caravels toward the sunset and left 
leagues of blue water behind him. Coming finally upon a new world, he 
forced Spain to revise the old inscription. The pillars of Hercules were 
retained, and the "plus ultra," but the "ne" was omitted. For Spain 
had found that "beyond" there was more than the imagination of man 
had dreamed. 

We often write the old motto on experiences In our lives that seem 
final. It may be either some loss sustained or some goal reached that has 
the effect of a damper on aspiration for the future. Through good fortune 
or through ill, men reach the point where they assume that there is 
nothing beyond. They have come to the contineB of their world. 

Distressing loss often has that effect. One loses his health or his 
money or his reputation and concludes that there is nothing left for him 
In life. He has reached the limits both of desire and of duty. Any pos- 
sible beyond seems like a barren waste. 

II. Personal sorrows are not infrequently pillars of Hercules beyond 
which the voyager on life's ocean will not venture. The passing out of 
our circle, for instance, of some personality that has meant companion- 
ship and happiness seems to put up the bars against us. We see nothing 
ahead that is pleasant or desirable. The Israelites of old, led captive 
across the desert, felt that their national existence was at an end. They 
hung their harps on the willows and refused to sing the songs of Zlon 
In a strange land. Not otherwise men and women everywhere, in the 
presence of those tragedies of which life Is full, feel that the music, 
buoyancy and delight of existence are clean gone forever. 

III. It Is useful at such times to reflect that the march of the years 
may still bring ub gifts that we have never suspected could come our way. 
Columbus, on his weary voyage, muBt often have concluded that the old 
motto was right after all, and that there was nothing beyond the horizon 
when one day there swung out of the mist a whole new hemisphere. Sim- 
ilarly people often find a delight In work and a Joy In companionship that 
almost surprise them after losses that have shattered life to Its founda- 
tions. It 1b a sane and rlfcht hope that, In the providence of Ood, life 
should continue to be Interesting and useful to the end. 



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IV. This present life itself is only a preparation. It is only the 
vestibule to the temple that shall one day be revealed. Let the outlook 
be extended beyond this narrow spot that men call earth. 

* * * 

I. Thorns in nature serve a purpose, and there is a reason for them 
in life. Trials are often blessings in disguise. The thorn in St. Paul's 
life was doubtless the Lord's method of preventing over-exaltation in the 
case of this highly-favored apostle. The way St. Paul managed the trial 
is instructive, for the answer to his three-fold prayer was: "My grace is 
sufficient for thee;" then, losing the desire to get rid of the infirmity, a 
wonderful change is wrought in him, and that which had been a matter 
of sorrow now became a matter of rejoicing, and he says: "Most gladly, 
therefore, will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ 
may rest upon me." 

II. The uses of affliction become clearly apparent. The epicurean 
principle is, "Flee from pain;" the stoical one, "Ignore pain;" while the 
Christian method is, "Use pain." For five years after the ascension of 
Christ the little church was content to remain in Judea, and no Gentiles 
were in its membership, and little effort was made to evangelize the 
nations, until persecution scattered them and set them to work. A little 
child suffering in a well-lighted room called her mother to turn on the 
dark. Many a one in the light of prosperity is ignoble and selfish, but 
generous and worthy when a wise hand turns on the dark. 

III. Where there is suffering there is consolation, and where there 
is consolation there is divine grace. How very wonderful the declara- 
tion in the second Corinthian Letter that God's grace is sufficient for us, 
this love and favor and good-will of God towards us, and this good work 
of God in us! — Selected. 

* * * 

Pain should be a great uniting element in human life. A full and 
unbroken prosperity makes for disunion. A rough and gloomy experi- 
ence calls out the compassion that is in human hearts. It is the great 
awakener of human sympathy and kindness. Of this the world is full, 
and, perhaps, more full than ever. We need not try to exaggerate the 
claim of Christianity in this respect. It is admitted that Christianity has 
remodeled the treatment of suffering and helplessness. Hospitals are 
still largely the outcome of Christian faith. The heart of Christ was the 
great fountain of sympathy with suffering, and his compassion for all in 
pain has overflowed into many hearts that do not own him as Master. 
That we are all members one of another, is a truth never so fully and 
keenly felt as after long suffering, provided that suffering has brought us 
new and near ties. It is necessary to lay stress upon this. Suffering by 
itself tends to harden, and, to soften, counteracting influences must 
work. Very often, while relieving pain, we do more than we think. We 
enable the sufferer to rise from the signs of true human life to the tokens 
and witnesses of a divine love. To be suffering, and to be neglected at 
the same time, is to have a veil interposed not only between man and 
man, but between man and God. The result must too often be to harden 
and estrange. But if the moral end of suffering be largely its influence 
upon the heart in humanizing it, then the loving relief of suffering and 



SANCTIFIED TRIALS. 



395 



its faithful attendance may bring the sorely-tried heart nearer to God 
and his Christ and his grace. 

n. If pain often unites man to man, so it often begins and perfects 
the union of man to God. It teaches fortitude and resignation. It will 
not teach us these unless God himself is with us while we suffer. There 
is a submission which is not fatalism. There is a brave endurance which 
is not callousness. Fatalism is abhorrent to Christianity, but patience 
is not. It is, on the contrary, a beautiful Christian virtue. It ascends 
into regions beyond our view, for there have been those who trusted 
God while he slew them. There is a loftier height. "I, John, your 
brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and pa- 
tience which are in Jesus." The patience that is in Jesus often brings 
believing hearts into the highest experiences of the mystical union. — 
British Weekly. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Why? (616) 

A gentleman, whose daughter had long been sick, had bought for her 
birthday present a beautiful goblet of fine glass. It was as clear as crys- 
tal and of most exquisite modeling, and to make it quite perfect he 
wanted the daughter's name engraved upon it, and he had brought it to 
the workman for that purpose. The man took the delicate glass in his 
hands, and laid it against a swiftly revolving emery-wheel, and as he 
turned it to and fro, to bring out the inscription, the drip and sand accu- 
mulated upon it till it looked as if it had been rolled in mud. He held 
the goblet firmly to its place, crowded It hard, first upon a larger wheel 
and then upon a smaller one till It seemed as if the fragile thing would 
go Into a thousand pieces. After half an hour of this rough work at last 
the glass was carefully lifted and its bright surface rubbed clean; then 
the engraving stood out, every stroke perfect; and, surrounded by a 
wreath of roses, in beautiful old English letters appeared the child's 
name. If that glass had been conscious it might have asked, "Why must 
I, above all others, be ground and cut In this way?" The answer would 
have been, "In order that nothing might be lacking to your beauty and 
to my dear child's Joy, I brought you here and had you put on this wheel 
and engraved with her name; the process was not pleasant, but It has 
made you sacred in my eyes forever." So, my brethren, does God some- 
times grind and cut a dellcato soul. The process is painful and while It la 
going on it Beems perhaps rather defiling than beautifying, but when It Is 
ended there stands "a name which no man knoweth, saving he that rw- 
celveth It" — Samuel D. Campbell, D.D. 

The USM of Advertlty (617). 
The Farm and Fireside thus shows how the great pest, the boll- 
weevll, has been of advantage to the South: The people of the South are 
likely to forget how much In the way of blessing they owe to the boll- 
weevil. Congress appropriated money to the Department of Agriculture 
to use In devising ways to circumvent the pest; and the late Doctor 
Knapp, seeing no war to do this except by successful mixed farming, used 
the money, and every other cent he could get. In showing the southern 
farmers how to grow cotton and corn. Out of this grew the groat United 



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States Co-operative Demonstration Work of the Bureau of Plant Indus- 
try — and the dawn of a new day for the South. 

The Bureau has 32 negro demonstrators at work, who have enrolled 
about 4,000 negro farmers as co-operators. There are numerous negro 
farmers enrolled under white demonstrators. The Department estimates 
that 25,000 negro co-operators were reached directly and indirectly by its 
work in one season. No one oa*n estimate the benefit to the nation and 
to the South of this work a$0ng the blacks. So good came out of evil. 

We Need Our Crosses (618). 
We have need of all our crosses. When we suffer much, It is because 
we have strong ties that it is necessary to loosen. We resist, and we thus 
retard the divine operation; we repulse the heavenly hand, and it must 
come again. It would be wiser to yield ourselves at once to God. That 
the operation of his providence which overthrows our self-love should 
not be painful to us would require the intervention of a miracle. Would 
it be less miraculous that a soul, absorbed in its own concerns, should in 
a moment become dead itself than that a child should go to sleep a 
child and wake up a man? — Fenelon. 

Life's Handicaps (620). 

A young man complained to his minister some time ago that it was 
of no use to talk to him about college and training for a life work and all 
that — he had never had half a chance in his life and never expected to 
have. The boy's father was dead — he had been a drunkard. As the old- 
est of the family, this son had been his mother's mainstay since he was 
old enough to know the family troubles. He had no thought of leaving 
her to fend alone, and no wish to do so. But an ingrained bitterness and 
discouragement revealed itself in that night's talk, and the old minister 
set himself to root it out and conquer it. 

"No use!" the boy repeated; "I have tried. I've studied a lot nights 
all by myself. But it's like working with one hand, and you can't do 
anything that way." 

"Yes, you can!" insisted the minister. "My boy, half the best work 
in the world has been done with one hand. The world's masterpieces 
have often been done under a handicap. Fight for your mother and the 
rest of them with one hand, but use that free hand to do your own work 
with." 

Patience (621). 

To be hindered in the work and yet not be impatient with God's way 
or doubtful that the work is going on — that was the exile's problem on the 
little dry island of Patmos. And it has been the problem of many a man 
who was tempted to think himself forsaken ever since. — Hilton Jones. 



LXXXI. THE LIFE IN CHRIST. 



"I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ 
liveth in me; and the life which I now live In the flesh, I live by the 
faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. — 
Galatlans 2:20. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Some of the special blessings and privileges of this life In Christ are 
set forth by Rev. James Robertson, D.D., as follows: 

I. There Is the great blessing of the Father's keeping, which Jesus 
asks for his disciples with urgency, on account of their exposure In a 
hostile world — "Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast 
given me;" "I pray not that thou shouldest take them from the world, 
but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one." — John 17:11, 15. 

II. There is the Father's sanctifying, or more exactly, his consecrat- 
ing of the disciples of Jesus to their work for him In the world, so that, 
renouncing self-gratification, they may be entirely devoted to it — "Sanc- 
tify them In the truth: thy word is truth. As thou didst send me imto 
the world, even so sent I them Into the world. And for their sakes I 
sanctify myself, that they themselves also may he sanctified In truth," 
John 17:17-19. 

III. There 1b the Father's discipline, which comes through the word 
of Jesus, and, when more Is needful, through affliction experienced In the 
natural life, and checking the carnal will. "My Father Is the husbandman 
. . . . every branch (In me) that beareth fruit, he cleanseth It, that 
It may bear more fruit," John 15: 1, 2. 

IV. There is the shepberd-care of Jesus, who intimately knows his 
flock, guides each one of them, and will suffer none of them to perish — 
"He calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out;" "My sheep 
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto 
tbem eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch 
them out of ray hand," John 10:3, 27, 28. 

V. There In the fellowship with the Father and the Son promised In 
the words, "If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father 
will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him," 
John 14:23. 

VI. There is the fellowship of believers with one another for which 
Jesus prays, "that they may all be one," John 17:21. 

VII. There is the answering of all prayer in the name ot Jesus — that 
In to say, offered In the faith revealed by Jesus, and so truly prompted by 
the Spirit whom he sends that ho himself speaks In it, and we speak in 
his name — "I chose you . . . that whatsoever ye shall ask of the 
Father In my name, he may give it you," John 15:16. See also 14:13, 
14; 16:23-26; Mark 11:24. 

VIII. There Is the blessing that comes of being occupied, like Jesus, 
in the service of man — "He that believeth on me, the works that I do 
shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I 



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go unto the Father," John 16:12. "He himself said, It Is more blessed 
to give than to receive," Acts 20:35. 

IX. Other great blessings, which may be regarded as all consequent 
on the gift and possession of divine life are freedom, rest, peace, and full 
satisfaction of the heart's aspirations. Life and light are closely con- 
nected. It was so in the creation of men, as St. John says, "The life was 
the light of men," 1:4. So from the divine life which Jesus came from 
heaven to give, an inner light springs up. Whoever receives the life has 
also moral and spiritual light, which grows in clearness with the growth 
of the life. This light agrees and coincides with what Jesus calls "the 
truth," and of which he says, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth 
shall make you free," John 8:32. 

* * * 

Rev. B. S. Crosby, in preaching on this text, used this line of 

thought: 

I. Christianity is a life opposed to creed or form. Christianity is 
far more than simply a well-ordered moral life. It is gospel truth in- 
wrought by the Holy Spirit into the life, so that it becomes a vital prin- 
ciple of thought, or purpose, and action. This is the life that constitutes 
one a Christian. Creeds are no more Christianity than Euclid is mathe- 
matics, or botany, plant life. A man may subscribe to the best and fullest 
creed, and yet not be a Christian. 

II. Christianity is a life not dependent on feeling, which is often 
evanescent, and often without adequate cause. 

III. This life begins in the soul, here and now. We do not wait to 
reach the after-death world to realize it. It is the life which I now live 
in the flesh. We enter into it in this world. It is a historic life, a life 
which makes history. It is the spirit and spring of progress. It inspires 
to noble and worthy ambitions, that advance and rise, and lift society up 
to higher planes. It has tongues that speak, and pens that write, and 
hands that are skillful to execute, and hearts that love and aspire toward 
God, It blesses and uplifts the world in its advancing and upward move- 
ment. It brings to view facts and principles which otherwise we could 
not see and know. 

IV. It is thus a life of faith. The method by which this life is at- 
tained is suggested: "I live by the faith of God." This faith is both 
subjective and objective. It proceeds from the indwelling Christ and Is 
therefore a grace. Thus it quickens the mind and moves the heart to 
harmonious thought and right conception of truth, and constitutes spir- 
itual exercise, and is thus a virtue, so that faith is the spirit and spring 
of the Christian's life. 

V. This life is the outcome of God's love. A life of love has God 
in it. "This is my life," the mother says, as she presses her nursling to 
her heart. A life which Is born of love has the permanence of the 
Christ, who is life and thus lives in us. 

* * * 

Bishop H. W. Warren in preaching on this theme, gave the following 
inspiring unfolding of the truth: 

I. Christ in you. This is perfectly natural. Christ made all things, 
and without him was not anything made that was made. Science has 



THE LIFE IN CHRIST. 



399 



bidden good-by to the idea of an endowed universe and to an absentee 
God, and has come to the clear conviction of an immanent God. In mak- 
ing even such a thing as an apple nature first makes a little wooden wire, 
mere wood; through it flows the most beautiful baby clothes; O, the beau- 
tiful fragrant swaddling bands of coming fruit; through the same wire 
flows five seed cups enolosed in a sort of leather, and then in the seed 
cups seeds of life for a dozen more trees and millions of more apples, 
and then food compared with which the apples of the Hesperides are 
mere sawdust — nectar fit for the gods, enclosed in a seamless bag, and 
then when complete this wooden wire grows just apart and drops the 
apple into your hand. No, God maketh the grass to grow and he, imma- 
nent, takes care of nature, and much more will he dwell in genial human 
hearts. "Let the Bame mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus," and 
Paul bows his knees in the dungeon for his Ephesian Church and says: 
"I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he will 
grant you, according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened — " how 
much? "According to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened by his 
spirit with might in the inner man in order that Christ may dwell in 
your hearts." 

II. It is not only urged upon us, but is promised. "If any man love 
me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come 
unto him and make our abode with him." Christ in you! Paul said: "I 
am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, and yet not I but Christ 
liveth in me," and then he frequently exhorts his people far and wide to 
seek that same glorious experience, that they all may share the infinite 
Joy, uplift and power that the apostle to the Gentiles had. It is entirely 
natural for Christ to dwell in us and play on the high possibilities of our 
being. There is an organ; it is a wonderful bit of machinery; a child 
that knows nothing of it may make a noise on it, Jargon, discord, but let 
Gounod Bit at the keyboard and the raptures and trumpets of the Refor- 
mation fall upon the ear. Let Handel sit there and the glory of the 
"Hallelujah Chorus" fills all hearts and subdues all souls. Viewed as a 
machine, man is more wonderful than any which man has made, for God 
made you, and made your bodies to be a temple, fit for the Indwelling 
of the Holy Ghoat. You may play on the possibilities of your being like 
a child; you can feel the sounds and discords. But let God sit at the key- 
board of your being, and then shall his thought roll as music to fill the 
world. One who has dwelt In the Spirit of Christ said, "I live; yet not 1, 
but Christ liveth In me." Ah a result, he had great peace. 

III. That Is Christ's final legacy. Not as the world glveth, lands, 
money, property, incumbrance, but "My peace unto you." A woman, hl^h 
spirited. If anyone lifts a threatening finger, towers Into Indignation. She 
Ib a mother. She la undisturbed and hpr peace unruffled, though her child 
howls, and walls, and kicks, and smites her In the face with lta puny 
fl»t. She slnRS and coos and soothes the child to sleep upon her peaceful 
bosom. Christ Is peace. He was reviled of men. They bowed at his feet 
In pretended worship; they smote him with tho pnlms of their hands; they 
spit In hla face; they nailed him to the cross. But his peace was undis- 
turbed; and the only sound that flowed out of hlH lips was, "Father, for- 
give them, for thoy know not what they do." His peace In you brings the 



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same result. In your Church your plans may be set aside; other leaders 
may come to the front; words may be spoken contrary to your wishes 
and will there. "My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth" — 
but my peace, the peace of God which passeth all understanding. 

IV. This man who had Christ dwelling in him received divine guid- 
ance. He had been through Phrygia and Galatia, and desired to go into 
Bithynia, and the Spirit of Christ which was in him suffered him not, but 
brought him to the sound that separated Asia and Europe and carried 
him over by a straight course, not drifting and tacking before contrary 
winds; and all Europe and we heard the gospel thereby. Divine guid- 
ance! Have you been guided? Have you been kept from Bithynia? 
Have you been sent to this man, that man, and the other? 

V. Then beside guidance he received power. He needed it. "Of the 
Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten 
with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and 
day I have been in the deep." "Why do you not quit, and go home to 
your beloved Tarsus, and walk its academic gardens? Why not?" "Be- 
cause the love of Christ constrains me." Christ in you! The love of 
Christ constrains the sacrifice. Do you not know that these old Bible 
scenes are not meant to be simply impossibilities to modern life? All 
these things happened for ensample, and they were written for our ad- 
monition. I never was one who believed that the glory of the race was 
in the beginning. God's great stream of development on to eternity did 
not begin greatest in the early ages, and will not dwindle away to noth- 
ing in the end. It grows! These things of Paul and Samuel were given 
for ensample — and written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the 
earth have come. Wesley had Christ in him as surely as Paul. He 
might have spent his life in the quiet elegance of a cloister, but he was to 
preach the gospel of Christ as a living experience to the world. 

Moody once heard a man say that the reason all the world was not 
converted was because Christ could not find men in whom he could work 
his will; and Moody said, "Well, here will be one man hereafter in whom 
Christ can work his will, and that is Moody." As a result, see him, the 
great evangelist, passing through all the English-speaking land, with 
thousands upon thousands hearing him. O let Christ be in you. Let him 
work his will in you through the glorious fullness of the gospel of Jesus 
Christ, that all lives may be touched by the power of the living Christ. 
So shall the Church forge on under God's guidance into greater and more 
glorious power. 

* * * 

Luther's comment on this text was: Now, because Christ liveth in 
me, therefore look what grace, righteousness, life, peace, and salvation 
are in me; all this is his, and yet, notwithstanding, the same is mine 
also, by that inseparable union and conjunction which is through faith, by 
which Christ and I are made, as it were, one body in spirit. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Christ Liveth In Me (622). 
Happy he who can feel God with his soul as keenly and as really as 
he feels the air with his body. Thrice happy he who has so vivid a sense 
of the actual personal presence of his Saviour that he walks with him and 



THE LIFE IN CHRIST. 



401 



talks to him more intimately and constantly than with any earthly 
friend. It can be done. It may grow by cultivation to be the greatest 
power of one's days, the sweetest refreshment of one's nights. It will 
diffuse a mighty influence continually through the heart and through the 
life. There need be no vehemence or strain about it, no bondage as of a 
painful task, yet, of course, it is not without effort, for distractions are 
many, interruptions almost constant The sense of God's nearness can- 
not act with equal intensity or be equally vivid in consciousness at all 
times; it cannot be absolutely uninterrupted. The law of healthful feel- 
ing demands changes. We are not to condemn ourselves when neces- 
sary business requires, for a season, our close, exclusive attention. 
Nevertheless, there may be that habitual spring and swing of the soul God- 
ward which will send it swiftly back to him whenever the restraint of 
pressure is removed; a steadily increasing bent in that direction, displac- 
ing the bent earthward and sinward which makes us in our unregenerate 
state, and even in the early stages of our disclpleship so "prone to wan- 
der." This habit is not to be reached by any easy or royal road of quick 
obtaining; it comes by patient practice. 

Why do the poets, beginning with the psalmist, speak so much of 
"the secret of his presence," "the secret place of the Most High?" 
Chiefly, we think, because the believer so constantly baffles his pursuers, 
or oppressors and assailants, by retiring within this unseen fortress, the 
key to which they cannot discover. He is safely hidden from all alarms, 
all woeB, all foes. His entire deliverance from the strife of tongues and 
the fear of men, his composure under their taunts and threats, his peace 
amid the storm, his brightness in the gloom, is an impenetrable mystery 
to them. With this "secret of the Lord" they cannot meddle; it mocks 
them and puzzles them; it foils and frustrates all their schemes. How 
sweet and unbroken the rest when our Saviour is our keeper, keeping us 
and ours in his Btrong pavilion! — From "The Riches of His Grace." 

The Soul's Divine Tenant (623). 
He will come into the solitude in which the soul dwells, and make 
the darkness bright with his presence, and break the monotonous silence 
with words of love. Wo have him only to speak to: he alone can under- 
stand us. He will rejoice with us when we rejoice, and weep with us 
when we weep. The heart knoweth its own bitterness; God knows it, too; 
and though a stranger can not Intermeddle with its joy, he, whose temple 
and duelling place is the soul that loves him, is no stranger, but the 
soul's most Intimate and only friend. — R. W. Dale. 

The Personal Christ (624). 
There Is no more futile waste of breath than that of teachers of 
morality, who have no message but Be good! Tie good! and no motive 
by which to urge It but the pleasures of virtue and the disadvantages of 
vice. When the vagueness of the abstract thought of goodness solidifies 
Into a living Person and that Person makes his appeal first to our hearts 
and bids us love him, and then opens before us the unstained light of his 
own character and beseeches us to be like him, the repellent becomes 
attractive; the impossible becomes possible, and "If ye love Me keep My 
commandments" becomes a constraining power and a victorious Impulse 
In our lives. — Alexander Maclaren. 



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Christ Within the Life (625). 
When Saul of Tarsus heard the Master's call, he cried out, "Who 
art thou, Lord?" and, as he opened the door, a heavenly radiance filled 
the room, where Jesus became enthroned — the murderer was transformed 
into a saint. 

Jerry McAuley was changed from a river thief into an evangel of love 
to lost comrades. 

Samuel H. Hadley, catching a glimpse of the Saviour, was lifted 
from the gutter into the leadership of the religious forces of a great city 

When the Salvation Army led a brutish, ignorant man from the slums 
of London to Christ, an old comrade asked him, saying, "Who was the 
father of Jesus? Where did Jesus live? When did he live and how did 
he die?" "I don't know," replied the new convert. "What do you know?" 
said the questioner. Then, with face beaming with joy, he exclaimed, "I 
know that he saved me." 

The most distinguished and learned minds have found Christ through 
this soul sense of personal consciousness. Dr. Horace Bushnell once said: 
"I know Jesus Christ better than I know any man in Hartford, and I think 
if he came along here he would arrest himself and say, 'Here's a man I 
know.' " Phillips Brooks once testified, "I know Jesus and he knows me, 
and we walk together, face to face." 

God has given to man a spiritual sense — a sixth sense, by which' the 
soul becomes conscious of divine things. It was by this religious con- 
sciousness that the child Samuel heard the voice of God. By this "inner 
light" David felt the horror of his sin and the joy of forgiveness. In this 
holy of holies of the soul, 

"Closer is he than breathing, 
And nearer than hands and feet." 

Until Helen Keller was seven years old her teachers had given her 
no religious instruction. When she reached the age of twelve years, 
Phillips Brooks began to tell her about God, what he had done, how he 
had loved men and what he is to us. The deaf, dumb and blind child 
listened intently, as her teacher interpreted Mr. Brooks' words, when she 
said, "Mr. Brooks, I knew all this before, but I didn't know his name." — 
Rev. Edwin Whittier Caswell, 



LXXXII. BURDEN BEARING. 



"Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ."— 
Galatians 6:2. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. J. H. Jowett followed these lines in developing this text: 
Burdened people in old Rome were carrying just the same load as 
burdened people are carrying through our streets today. The burden 
may have a somewhat different covering, but strip it of its wrappings 
and you will find it the same. Everybody who walked through the 
streets of old Rome carried a burden, as does everyone walking through 
the streets of our city today, and, therefore, I say, the old letter is as 
fresh as the morning's post, and the counsel of the apostle is a newly- 
spoken word from the Lord of Light and Grace. "Bear ye one another's 
burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." 

Now I want to ask you to undo with me a few of those burdens 
and look at them, and give them a name, and then see what we can do 
to help one another to bear them. 

L I will begin with the commonest burden to be found in the world, 
the burden of sin. 

Now, what is sin? Sin is the revolt against the holy sovereignty 
of God, and surrender and homage and allegiance to the enemy of God. 
Sin Is essentially a change of flag, a deliberate desertion of one flag 
to march under another flag. Everyone here knows that the wide gate 
is always the portal of servitude. There is no exception. Let a man 
try to get out of that Iron wide gate and he will find that it is as cramped 
and narrow as the gate of the innermost cell of the old bastlle. Sin is 
revolt, and sin Is servitude. Bear ye one another's burdens? My 
brethren, what can we do for one another in regard to this burden of 
elnl? The only thing we can do with people who are thuB burdened 
with the guilt of their old sins is to bring them to the Saviour of the 
World, we can do nothing but bring them to the old fountain "opened 
for sin and uncleanness." We can begin to lift a man's burden by 
bringing him to the Master, who can take away his sins. It Is a glorious 
sharing of the burden. We can do it by counsel, and by gentle guidance, 
and by mighty Intercession. 

II. Now there Is another burden, also found In New York, Galatla 
and ancient Rome — I will call It the burden of Temperament. What I 
mean Is this: That even when a man has found Christ, even when his 
sin has been forgiven, even when the great renewal has taken place, 
the man has still to work out his own salvation. When the seefl of re- 
generation has been Imparted by the good God, that seed is to be nour- 
ished and matured, and it is to be matured amid the special constitu- 
tional conditions of the Individual life. Conversion does not annihilate 
temperament Every regenerated man has to fight the good fight of 
faith, and his warfare Is determined for him by the peculiarity of his 
own mental and moral constitution. 



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"Bear ye one another's burdens." Can we do it? I think we can. 
We can help the man with the temperament like a powder magazine 
into mastery or send him into servitude; we can sling lighted matches 
round about his magazine, or we can spread cooling influences over his 
soul. We can take sides with the devil or with the angels. This means 
to help one another in the carrying of temperamental burdens; to con- 
sider and steady one another from the standpoint of chivalry in the 
Christian life, and to determine that, by our conduct and demeanor, 
we will help our brother to triumph in the realm of grace and hope, 
just as Greatheart in the Pilgrim's Progress helped Mr. Feeblemind, 
Mr. Ready-to-Halt, Miss Muchafraid and others, until all reached the 
Heavenly Country, the fragrant land where bloomed the lily of eternal 
peace. 

III. A third burden, found everywhere, is the burden of incom- 
pleteness. What I mean is this: No man is an integer; every man Is 
a fraction. The New Testament teaches that no man is the body, but 
every man is a limb. Everybody is incomplete, gloriously, graciously in- 
complete; and our gaps are to be filled up with one another's fullness. So 
you see the consolidarity of the race is to be made up of the fellowship of 
incompleteness — human fragments bound together in the wholeness and 
holiness of comradeship and grace. 

Now, it Is the loving design of God that we surrender ourselves to 
one another. If one is a lock, another a key, one a reed and another 
a breeze, we are bound to come together. We need one another, and 
without one another we shall be heavily laden; and to live a selfish, 
self-centered and exclusive life is to rob humanity of its due, and to 
dwarf and Impoverish and sterilize oneself. "Bear ye one another's 
burdens." 

IV. The streets of the world are filled with burdened people, 
wounded people, sore people; and people are often sorest and most 
burdened who keep a smiling face. And so it behooves us to put away 
all brusqueness and thoughtless speaking and move about with care 
among our burdened fellows. But everybody says, "Have I always to 
be on my guard?" Well, why not? If you were to move about in a 
hospital, among broken bodies, you would be on your guard. Nurses 
have to be on their guard always, and if we have to walk tenderly and 
circumspectly among broken bodies, why not among oppressed and 
broken souls? It was Christ's way, and you will find him under the 
burden that you try to raise up. Some have never found Christ because 
they have never looked for him in the right place. I will tell you 
where you will surely find him. Find out somebody who is burdened. 
Put your back beneath his load and you will know that the Saviour is 
there. I never knew it to fall. He bore our griefs and he carried our 
sorrows, and he is carrying them still, and if you want to be near him 
get under the burden and you will find him there. 

* * * 

Dr. William G. McCready concluded a sermon on this topic in these 
words: Now, as to our personal responsibility in the matter. The 
greatest character in modern fiction is Victor Hugo's Bishop of A. In 
spite of the traditions of luxury, he chose a life of simplicity. He be- 



BURDEN BEARING. 



405 



friends a thief who makes way with his silverware and is caught. 
When the police return with him to the Bishop, he bids them loose him 
and tells the thief to take the silver and make a man of himself. The 
French laws were harsh in their treatment of felons. In the midst of 
such environment the Bishop Btands out as the embodiment of gentle- 
ness and love. To him humanity was God-like. On man's brow was 
written hope, and in his heart, love. Man was God's child. Man was 
weak, but God was strong. Man's variability toward God was in con- 
stant contrast to God's unchangeableness and love toward man. 

The Bishop had a vision. He looked up through man to God. He 
determined to show the thief that he had caught the Spirit of God. 
Find your neighbor and minister unto him. Let us each have our 
vision of God and let us follow it where it leads. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

"I'll See You Over" (626). 

The 6 o'clock rush was swelling the crowd on the main business 
thoroughfare of a big city one afternoon. Perhaps it was because of 
an approaching storm; perhaps it was because of that inward blindness 
which comes with self-centered thoughts; perhaps it was only because 
of eagerness to get home, that among all those quick-treading feet none 
was arrested at the sight of a poorly clad young man standing hesi- 
tant on the curb at the intersection of two streets. The crowd hurried 
past unheeding. This young fellow stared with sightless eyes across 
the street whose turmoil he dared not invade unaided. 

As he stood there, tapping the curb gropingly with his cane, a tall, 
rugged-looking man came swinging across the street. He spied the 
blind man, faltering and timid in his helplessness, and without an 
Instant's hesitation stepped up to the young fellow and laid a hand on 
his shoulder. 

"It'B all right, brother," he said. "I'll see you over," And taking 
the man by the arm, he piloted him through the throng. 

There Is always someone who must be "helped over;" and not while 
one single human need remains untouched may we lay aside our task, 
nay, our privilege, of helpfulness. — The ContinenL 

"If You Can't Smile" (627). 
In the vestibule of a certain hospital visitors see a card bearing 
this advice: "Never utter a discouraging word while you are in this 
hospital. You should come here only for the purpose of helping. Keep 
your hindering, sad looks for other places; and if you can't smile, don't 
go In." 

"If you can't Bmlle don't go In!" It Ib good advice for others than 
hospital visitors. Who Is beyond the ministry of a kindly smile? — 
East and WesL 

Gracious Ministries (628). 
It tu a blustery, dreary, cold November day. Outside of a res- 
taurant, on a busy street, an old lady stood with her hand outstretched 
asking for alms. Her clothes were poor and the hand outheld was 
twisted and blue from exposure. A few, a very few, stopped and 
dropped a coin into the old wrinkled hand. A young girl about seven- 



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teen came down the street. She was neatly but not richly dressed, a 
type of the many girls who work in the stores near by. The old woman 
held out her hand. The young girl stopped and shook her head. It 
told the onlookers as plain as words, "I have no money;" and then she 
noticed the bare, twiBted and cold hands. Without a moment's hesi- 
tation she drew off her woolen gloves, gave them to the old woman and 
passed on, and as she passed on, in her eyes was a new light — Se- 
lected. 

A Refuge for the Troubled (629). 
Here and there, all too rarely, we find men and women who are as 
a refuge to those in trouble. I have in mind now a minister to whom 
men in trouble come, not because they are members of his church or 
live in his neighborhood, not because he is a minister, but because he 
has a warm heart and a sympathetic ear, because they feel that some- 
how he understands their problems and does care. They come in the 
distress of their sins and tell him frankly how they feel, not as to a 
confessor, but as to a brother. He never betrays their confidences and 
rarely fails to help them. He does not do it by preaching, but by en- 
tering into their troubles in the Christlike spirit of brotherhood, recog- 
nizing the passions of men, and that there is more hope for the man 
who means well, but falls, because temptations have been too strong 
for the flesh, than for the man who professes goodness and, with delib- 
erate meanness, cheats, wrongs and defames others. — Selected. 

"Boosting" (630). 
On Sunday, October 26th, 1823, the annual sermon for the Mis- 
sionary Union was preached in Boston by a young man from the text 
"The field is the world." The weather was stormy and cold; the au- 
dience small and without enthusiasm. The next day the young preacher 
went to Dr. Wisner's home and threw himself on a sofa in one of hi3 
most despondent moods. Speaking of his discourse of the previous 
evening, he declared it a "complete failure that fell dead." But there 
was one hearer, Deacon Loring, who said a good word for the 6ermon 
and printed and distributed it. That single boost lifted the youflg 
preacher to the very top as a scholar, and the discourse was hailed with 
delight by Christians of all denominations at home and abroad, im- 
mortalizing the "Moral Dignity" of the Missionary Enterprise and lay- 
ing the foundation for the usefulness and popularity of the learned and 
renowned Francis Wayland, President of Brown University. — Selected. 

The Burden of Guilt (631). 
No man can touch the burden of his brother's guilt. No man can 
go back into another man's yesterdays and put the crooked straight. 
When Judas had betrayed Christ and saw he was condemned he brought 
back the thirty pieces of silver, saying, "I have betrayed innocent 
blood." What can you do for that man's guilt? You cannot touch it. 
Here is an instance from secular literature, that marvelous and mighty 
and almost inhuman play of "Macbeth." When Macbeth had murdered 
Duncan he suffered from a "sleepless sting." He says: "Whence is 
that knocking? How is it with me, when every voice appalls me? What 
hands are here?" What can you do with that? You cannot touch it. A 



BURDEN BEARING. 



407 



more powerful illustration is Lady Macbeth, wandering at night through 
the halls of Dunsinane Castle after the murder, holding out her hands. 
She cries: "Here is the smell of the blood still, all the perfumes of 
Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!" And the doc- 
tor said: "This disease is beyond my practice," and a little later he 
adds: "More needs she the divine than the physician." — Jowett. 

Sympathy (632). 
I am the voice of the helpless, 

I am the friend of the weak; 
I am the simple music 

The lips of the tender speak. 
I am the rose, where rosea 

Are scarcer than many know; 
I am the feet that travel 

Where proud feet never go. 

I am the right that enters 

The ring to cope with wrong; 
I am the gentle message, 

I am the soothing song, 
I am the constant comrade 

Of friendless hearts and sad; 
I am the light that scatters 

The shadows murk and mad. 

I am the courage bringer, 

I am the one who bears 
Comfort to hearts that suffer, 

Healing to countless cares. 
I am the cry that wakens 

The soul of the roaring time 
Till it turns in its endless pity 

To banish the social crime. 

I am the human chorus 

That rises unto the stars 
Out of the flying ages, 

Breaking the prison bars. 
I am the sunlight dancing 

Down into hearts of grief; 
I am the strength and reason 

For all divine belief. 

— Baltimore Sun. 

Rules for Making Sunshine (633). 
When you rise In the morning, form a resolution to make the day 
• happy one to a fellow creature. It Is easily done; a left-off garment 
to a man who needs It, a kind word to the sorrowful, an encouraging 
expression to the striving, trifles In themselves, light as air, will do It, 
at least for the twenty-four hours. You send one person, only one. 



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happy through the day — that is three hundred and sixty-five during the 
course of the year; and suppose you live only forty years after you com- 
mence that practice, you have made fourteen thousand six hundred hu- 
man beings happy at all events for a time. Now, is not this simple? 
It is too short for a sermon, too homely for ethics, too easily accom- 
plished for you to say, "I would if I could." — Sydney Smith. 



LXXXIII. THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST. 



"Be not deceived; God Is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth 
that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the 
flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the 
Spirit reap life everlasting."— Galatians 6:7, 8. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
The great English preacher, Rev. Frederick W. Robertson, used the 
following plan in presenting the truth of these verses: There is a close 
analogy between the world of nature and the world of spirit. They 
bear the impress of the same hand; and hence the principles of nature 
and its laws are the types and shadows of the Invisible. The worlds 
visible and invisible are two books, written by the same finger, and 
governed by the same Idea. Or, rather, they are but one Book, separated 
into two only by the narrow range of our ken. For It is impossible to 
study the universe at all without perceiving that it is one system. Begin 
with what science you will, as soon as you get beyond the rudiments, 
you are constrained to associate it with another. As tare-seed comes 
up tares, and wheat-seed wheat, and as the crop in both cases is in 
proportion to two conditions, the labor and the quantity committed to 
the ground — so in things spiritual, too, whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap. Not something else, but "that." The proportion 
holds In kind; it holds too in degree, in spiritual things as in natural. 
"He which Boweth sparingly, shall reap also sparingly; and he which 
soweth bountifully, shall reap also bountifully." If we could understand 
and rightly expound that principle, we should be saved from much of 
the disappointment and surprise which come from extravagant and un- 
reasonable expectations. 

I. The Principle: "God Is not mocked: for whatsoever a man 
soweth, that shall he also reap." 

There are two kinds of good possible to men — one enjoyed by our 
animal being, the other felt and enjoyed by our spirit. 

II. The Applications of the Principle: 1. "He that soweth to his 
tlesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption." There are two kinds of life: 
one of the flesh — another of the Spirit. Amidst the animal and selfish 
desires of our natures there Is a voice which clearly speaks of duty, 
right, perfection. This Is the Spirit of Deity In man; it Is the life of 
God In the soul. This Is the evidence of our Divine parentage. 

But there is a double temptation to live the lower life Instead of this, 
a. The deslreB of our animal nature are keener than those of our spirit- 
ual. The cry of Passion Is louder than the calm voice of Duty. b. The 
reward Is given sooner. It takes a less time to amass a fortune than 
to become heavenly-minded. It costs less to Indulge an appetite than 
it does to gain the peace of lulled passion. And hence, when men feel 
that, for the spiritual blessing, the bread must be cast upon the waters, 
which shall not be found until after many days (skepticism whispers, 
"never!"). It Is quite Intelligible why they choose the visible and palp- 
able Instead of the Invisible advantage, and plan for an Immediate har- 



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vest rather than a distant one. 

The lower life is that of the flesh. The "flesh" includes all the 
desires of our unrenewed nature — the harmless as well as sinful. Any 
labor, therefore, which is hounded by present well-being, is sowing to 
the flesh, whether it be the gratification of an immediate impulse, or 
the long-contrived plan, reaching forward over many years. 

2. "He that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlast- 
ing." What is meant by sowing to the Spirit here is plain. "Let us 
not be weary in well-doing," says the apostle directly after: "for in 
due season we shall reap if we faint not." Well-doing: not faith, but 
works of goodness, were the sowing that he spoke of. 

There is proclaimed here the rewardableness of works. So in many 
other passages: "Abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as ye 
know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." — "Laying up a good 
foundation for the time to come," was the reason alleged for charging 
rich men to be willing to give — and so all through. There is an irrevers- 
ible principle. The amount of harvest is proportioned to the seed 
sown. 

III. The Harvest. 1. The harvest is Life Eternal. But eternal life 
here does not simply mean a life that lasts forever. That is the destiny 
of the Soul: all souls, bad as well as good. But the bad do not enter 
into this "eternal life." It is not simply the duration, but the quality 
of the life, which constitutes its character of eternal. A spirit may live 
forever, yet not enter into this. And a man live but for Ave minutes 
the life of Divine benevolence, or desire for perfectness: in those five 
minutes he has entered into the life which is eternal, never fluctuates, but 
is the same unalterably forever, in the life of God. This is the reward. 

2. The reward is not arbitrary, but natural. God's rewards and 
God's punishments are all natural. Distinguish between arbitrary and 
natural. Death is an arbitrary punishment for forgery: it might be 
changed for transportation. It is not naturally connected. It depends 
upon the will of the lawmaker. But trembling nerves are the direct 
and the natural results of intemperance. They are, in the order of 
nature, the results of wrong-doing. The man reaps what he has sown. 
Similarly in rewards. If God gave riches in return for humbleness, that 
would be an arbitrary connection. He did give such a reward to Solo- 
mon. But when he gives life eternal, meaning by life eternal, not du- 
ration of existence, but heavenly quality of existence, as explained 
already, it is all natural. The seed sown in the ground contains in itself 
the future harvest. The harvest is but the development of the germ 
of life in the seed. A holy act strengthens the inward holiness. It is a 
seed of life, growing into more life. 

* * * 

Mr. Moody divided this text as follows: 

1. No man sows without expecting to reap. 

2. He expects to reap the same kind that he sows. 

3. He expects to reap far more than he sows. 

4. He will reap in kind and quality as he sows; no matter what 
he thinks. 



THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST 411 
ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 



Justice (634). 

Wandering in the darkness one is almost sure to come around by- 
and-by to the very place where he started. 

In the days of old, a Scotchman did an awful deed in the castle of 
a nobleman. In the dead of night he mounted a horse and set out to 
flee from the vengeance which he knew would pursue him. All night 
long he pressed on through the woods, thinking that every Btep waB 
taking him farther from Justice. But when the gray light of morning 
broke he was horrified to find that his way had brought him back to 
the very castle from which he had fled. He was discovered, captured 
and condemned to death. 

There is no way of escaping the consequences of sin. Flee as far 
as we may, the road will always lead back to the awful deed we have 
done. The penalty must be paid, sometime, somehow. 

"No one will ever know it if I do this thing!" 

Many a man has said this and thought he was telling the truth. 
The thing he planned to do may have seemed to him small at the time. 
That is the devil's way to make sin seem of no moment at first. But it 
is like setting foot in the maze of a monstrous spider's web. The poor 
victim struggles on, but the tangle grows thicker and the meshes 
stronger till at last death and ruin are all that stare him in the face. 

Sin's web grows more and more terrible at every step. The thing 
which appears so slight at the beginning keeps pulling and ever closing 
in till there Is no possible escape, save by the grace of God. 

The way of safety? 

There is but one safe way, and that is not to set the foot on the first 
.ound of sin'c ladder, for that ladder never leads upward, but always 
downward to lower depths. 

Round and round the bewildered traveler in the dark goes, until by- 
nnd-by he wakes to see that he Is forever face to face with the wrong 
he has done. Keep your feet now and ever In the way of truth and 
right. Then there will be no shadows at the end. — Edgar L. Vincent. 

Not Sand But Seed (635). 

In the fact that the harvest is determined by the kind of seed 
sown, we have an unchanging law of the natural and spiritual world. 
"Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles." Like produces 
like. We reap from the fields of nature that which we have sown. Why 
should we not apply this natural law to the spiritual world? What Is 
character? Is It not the constant outflow of habits of life and thought? 
The seed-thought results in the harvest of action. Sow the action and 
we reap a habit. Sow the habit and the resultant harvest is character: 
and character fixes destiny. Thought Is not a grain of sand, but seed 
with germlnant qualities. 

Hence, I deprecate that free and popular absolution which Is given 
to a young man who Is sowing wild oats. If you sow wild oats, you must 
harvest wild oats. If you sow to wind, you reap to whirlwind. God 



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in his great mercy sometimes causes a partial failure of the harvests — 
but the reaping is inevitable. "Be not deceived. God is not mocked." 

It is impossible to pass through a career of sin and not be polluted. 
The wound on my body or my soul may heal, but the scar remains. 
And then think of the tragedy of a misspent, a wasted life! Young man, 
stop and consider your sowing, I beseech you. — Rev. Marion J. Kline, 

Christ Reaped Our Harvest (638). 

Even God could not set aside the law of the harvest. The seed had 
been sown and the harvest must be reaped. "God so loved the world 
that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life." Jesus Christ came to 
die, the sinless for the sinful. He came to reap what we had sown. He 
came to gather the harvest of the evil seed we had been sowing, and 
that harvest caused him to lay aside his crown in glory, to come to 
earth, to lead the life of a wanderer and an outcast, to suffer death 
upon the cruel cross. And they led Jesus out to the place that is called 
Golgotha, and there they crucified him. The eternal harvest reaped by 
the suffering and death of the co-equal Son of God. 

As Christians we rejoice in a Saviour who reaped the harvest of 
our evil seed-sowing, who paid the debt and set us free. We are now 
sowing to the Spirit, and of the Spirit we are going to reap life ever- 
lasting. 

We are sowing in the realm of the Spirit, and we are going to reap 
in eternity, according to the way that we sow in this spiritual realm. 
We are saved by grace, but we are going to be rewarded according to 
our works. I close with a word to my non-Christian friends. We have 
all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Christians and non- 
Christians are alike in this, but you have refused to allow Jesus Christ 
to become your Saviour, you have refused to allow Jesus Christ to 
reap the harvest of your wrongdoing. Yet he came into the world for 
that very purpose. He said: "I came not to call the righteous but sin- 
ners to repentance," and "him that cometh unto me I will in no wise 
cast out." My closing question is this, How shall we escape if we 
neglect so great salvation? Remember, oh remember, that "Whatso- 
ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." — Rev. Curtis Lee Laws, 

The Wages (637). ."The wages of sin is" — benumbment. — J. H. 
Jowett. 

The Sure Harvest (638). 

Take the physical laws of this human nature of oUrs. Let a man 
sin against his own body by sensual indulgence; let him give way to 
the drink habit; let him wallow in the mire of lust, and he finds the 
universe against him, he finds Nature arising for his punishment. He 
reaps the sure and certain penalty of his wickedness and folly, in quiv j 
ering limbs, bleared eyes, raw-edged nerves, impaired health, premature 
death. When we postpone either punishment or reward to a future 
world, we do greatly err. Punishment iB immediate and unescapable. — 
Rev. J. D. Jones. 



THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST 



413 



The Immediate and Remote Harvest (639). 

That penalty's the best to bear 

Which follows soonest on the sin; 
And guilt's a game where losers fare 

Better than those who seem to win. 

How easy to keep free from sin! 

How hard that freedom to recall! 
For dreadful truth it is that men 

Forget the heavens from which they fall. 

— Coventry Patmore. 

A Seed's Vitality (640). 
The seed is the vital thing, and it has in it forces which do not 
appear. 

It la said that in 1844 a mummy was found in an ancient Egyptian 
tomb. The hieroglyphics on the mummy cloth placed the date of burial 
as far back as the early Pharaohs. The mummy was taken to the 
British Museum and there some seeds were found in its hand. They 
were like peas, and out of curiosity they were planted, and in due time 
a vine came forth prolific and healthy and green. Oh, the power wrap- 
ped up in every seed! — Selected. 

"The Flesh"— "The Spirit" (641). 
Vice woos many a thoughtless youth with enchanting songs and a 
bewitching loveliness. She seems to promise only joy and perennial 
delights, if one will yield to ber dalliance. But a myriad witnesses of 
every age and of every land testify from bitter experience that to those 
who follow her she shrinks sooner or later into repulsive loathsomeness, 
and appears at last In her revolting lair, amid husks and swine, sur- 
rounded by the wretched victims of her deceptive charms. "You are 
hungry," says the devil, "eat." "Sell your birthright for a mess of por- 
ridge. What is your birthright worth? What present want of your 
hungry soul and body can it feed? You are hungry, eat. You are in- 
flamed with desires; gratify those desires, even though you know you 
can not do It Innocently or rightfully." And many a soul, since Eve In 
the garden of Eden substituted sensuality for innocent wedded joys, 
has sinned as she sinned, and sorrowed as she sorrowed. He that 
soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; and he that sow- 
eth to the spirit, shall of the spirit reap everlasting joys. — Rev. G. F. 3. 
Payson, D.D. 



LXXXIV. THE FRUITS OF AN INDWELLING 

CHRIST. 

"That Christ may dwell In your hearts by faith; that ye being rooted and 
grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what 
Is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the 
love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled 
with all the fulness of God." — Ephesians 3:17-19. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
In an exceptionally able sermon on faith's revelations, Rev. Dr. W. H. 
Main said: 

I. A thousand men might tell you that honey is sweet, but you would 
never know it until you had tasted it. Experience is tasting and seeing 
that the thing is good. From curiosity, a lawyer entered a meeting for 
the relation of experience and took notes. So impressed was he that at 
the close of the meeting he arose and said: "My friends, I hold in my 
hands the testimony of no less than sixty persons who have spoken here 
this morning. They have all testified with one accord that there is a 
reality in religion, they having experienced its power in their own hearts. 
Many of these persons I know. Their word would be received In any 
court of Justice. They would not lie, and they cannot all be mistaken. I 
intend to lead a new life. Will you pray for me?" What foolishness for 
one to deny Christianity, because he himself has not experienced it. 

The testimony of a single prayer meeting, taking into account the 
character of the people speaking, would win any case in a court of law. 

II. Christianity is not an experiment but an experience. An experi- 
ment is something to be tried; experience is something that has been 
tried. Experiment is uncertain; experience is an unerring guide. Mr. 
Ruskln, in his earlier life, described this experience as "a relation that 
might truly exist between God and his creatures." Experience is a most 
wonderful safeguard. "Bread is poisonous," some one tells you, but you 
smile, for you have been eating bread every day for years. 

"How do you know that your Bible Is true?" said a skeptic to a poor 
widow. "Sir, by my own heart experience." "Oh," said he contemptu- 
ously, "your experience is nothing to me." "That may be, sir, but it is 
everything to me." Things we do not understand always seem absurd. 
An Indian returning from Washington was Bhot dead by an old chief for 
stating that he had seen the white men attach a great ball to a canoe 
and then rise up and sail through the air. Such a liar, said the old 
chief, should not live. And yet the Indian had but told of a balloon 
ascension. 

III. Because you cannot enter into the experiences of another, do 
not deny their reality. God often reveals himself in a most marvelous 
way through experience. In the story of many conversions you may 
heir this statement: "Ah I prayed suddenly a great peace filled my 
mmL" 

• * * 

Rev. Dr. George F. Pentecost Illuminated this theme by the follow- 
ing Instance: While conducting evangelistic services Id a New England 



416 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



city I was the guest of a gentleman whose wife, convalescing from aevere 
illness, was under a cloud of spiritual coldness. She could not see how 
she could be the object of God's love, when her own heart was so cold 
and loveless. One day I found her seated in a room with a large southern 
window. Though midwinter, the sun was streaming into the window 
upon flowers and plants and filling all the room with light and genial 
warmth. My invalid friend was seated in the window under the rays of 
the sun. She was still in distress of mind. I quoted to her, "Keep your- 
selves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of Jesus Christ unto 
eternal life;" but she said that she was entirely devoid of the love that 
was therein commanded, and utterly unable to realize any love to God. 
In vain I tried to make her see that it was God's love which was spoken 
of in the text, and not hers; that she was bidden to keep herself in the 
love God had toward her. Finally, I said: "Why do you come so often 
and sit so long in this south window?" 

"Why," she replied, "you know how long I have been ill with the 
rheumatic fever. But latterly I have been delivered from it, except in 
this left shoulder. So the doctor suggested that I sit in this south window, 
and see what a sun-bath would do for me. This is why I am here." 

"Well," said I, "and has the sun-bath done you any good?" 

"Oh, yes! I had not taken my daily bath here for more than a week 
or ten days until the pain left me; but it is so delicious to feel the genial 
warmth of this sunshine that I still come every day for a little while." 

"Ah, my friend," I replied, "this is exactly what the apostle is exhort- 
ing you to do when he says 'keep yourselves in the love of God.' Your 
soul has grown cold, and is full of the rheumatism of doubt and distress. 
In vain you have tried to expel your doubts and fears. There is but one 
remedy. Go and sit in the south window of God's love, and let the warm, 
life-giving rays of his glad sunshine pour themselves into your heart, and 
his love will chase out every doubt and fear, thaw away all coldness, and 
fill you with a joy and peace that will be more delicious to your soul than 
this material sunshine is to your body, so long the home of sickness and 
pain. And, after your doubts and fears have been dissipated, you will 
be glad of an hour every day, yea, you will be glad of the privilege of 
sitting, or standing, or walkiing, or working all the day long in the 'love of 
God.' For it pours itself out day and night, and is confined to no place 
or time. It is the believer's privilege always to keep himself in the love 
of God, as it is the sinner's privilege to step into it whenever he will." 

This thought seemed to strike her very forcibly. She exclaimed: 

"Oh! I have been trying to bring forth something good to offer to 
God, and then to find peace and comfort In something I have done or felt. 
Just keep yourself in the love of God," she went on, in a kind of soliloquy, 
"and let that fill you and quicken you. I might have saved myself weeks 
and months of suffering, far worse than the pains of illness, if I had only 
known this, or, at least, acted upon it; for, surely, I have known this. 
This comes of dwelling on one's own thoughts and feelings, instead of 
keeping close to the Word of God, and being taught and led by that." 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
A Testimony (642). 
It is fifty-three years since, by the grace of God, I was "delivered from 



THE FRUITS OF AN INDWELLING CHRIST. 



417 



the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of his dear Son." 
The change was so great that I have never doubted it, and what is another 
good proof, my family have not done so. In the early part of my Chris- 
tian life God gave me this promise. "Then shall we know if we follow 
on to know the Lord." And it has been fulfilled. One day, while singing 
a hymn I was struck by the words of these verses. I Bang again, and 
then dropping the tune, I cried in earnest prayer: 
"Jesu, let my nature feel 

Thou art God unchangeable; 
Jah, Jehovah, great I AM, 

Speak into my soul Thy name. 

"Grant that every moment I 
May believe, and feel Thee nigh; 
Steadfastly beholding Thy face, 
Stablished with abiding grace." 
What I felt while uttering this prayer I cannot describe. I was taken 
out of myself and taken into God. Since that day Jesus Christ has 
through faith been made unto me "wisdom and righteousness, and sancti- 
flcatlon, and redemption." — Selected. 

The Vision of Christ (643). 
D. L. Moody once said that he used to race with his shadow in his 
boyhood days, and he wondered why the shadow always kept ahead of 
him. But one day he was running with his face toward the sunlight, and, 
chancing to glance back, he saw his shadow coming behind, and staying 
there. To keep shadows from darkening the heart we must always face 
toward Jesus Christ. 

A Dominant Passion (644). 

The peculiar glory of Christ is that he provides a dominant passion, 
before whose power Satan falls from the high places of the soul he has 
usurped. What the Jews said of the Redeemer weeping over Lazarus we 
take for our race, "Behold! how he loved him." — Nutting. 

What Christ Can Do For and In You (645). 

Humboldt tells of a granite mound at the Junction of two South 
American rivers, called "Mother's Rock." It commemorated this Incident: 
A hostile expedition to capture prisoners had been made among these 
Indiana by the Spaniards. Among other prisoners taken was a woman 
who was surprised alone in a hut, her husband having gone off on a 
bunting «xpedltlon, accompaied by the children. After being carried to 
San Fernando, the desire to see her children induced her to escape. She 
fled repeatedly, but was as often caught and brought back and violently 
flogged, but without effect. It was then determined to send her to a 
distant station on the Rio Negro, whence It would be Impossible for her 
to return. While the canoo was passing up the river she flung herself 
Into the stream, was thrown ushore by the waves and escaped into the 
woods, but was again cauRht, brought back, and most cruelly beaten. 
She was taken to a distant station and closely confined, but In spite of her 
wounds sho took advanta^f of a dark, stormy night to unfasten with hor 
teeth the cords which bound her and asaln fled In search of hor children. 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



For many days and nights she wandered through a trackless forest, at 
that period of the year inundated, and swarming with venomous reptiles. 
She swam the swollen rivers; her flesh was torn with thorns and the 
spikes of the cactus; her only food for days was the large black ants that 
she caught, but over all obstacles her love conquered and she reached 
her children. Oh, if the love of a poor, heathen Indian woman could do 
that, what cannot the divine and ever-blessed Christ do in faithful con- 
stancy and fidelity to you? — Louis A. Banks, D.D. 

Christ-Knowledge (646). "How do you know you are a Christian?" 
She answered, "Why, he saved my soul!" That was an explanation that 
no interrogations and no fears could disturb. — Selected. 

The Reality of the Love of Christ (647). 

Henry M. Stanley, the African explorer, writes of the perils and terri- 
ble trials of his struggles in Central Africa: "Those whose faith in God 
is strong feel a sense of security in the deepest wilds. An invisible Good 
Influence surrounds them, to whom they may appeal in distress, an 
Influence which inspires noble thoughts, comfort in grief, resolution when 
weakened by misfortune. I imperfectly understand this myself, but I 
know when I have called I have been answered, strengthened, and as- 
sisted. It was of benefit to myself and to others." This experience might 
be confirmed in fuller expression from the testimony of many a saintly 
writer; but this from one not conscious of saintliness, or of having a 
message for others, has its peculiar value. It is the unconscious testi- 
mony of a strong man, living the most strenuous life, to the reality of the 
love of Christ as an abiding presence, as an atmosphere in which alone he 
found he could face the daily task and meet the constantly recurring 
peril. — Stimson. 



LXXXV. OUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR 
GROWTH. 



"Stir up the gift of God which Is In thee."— 2 Timothy 1:6. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
Rer. J. H. Jowett, D.D., gave the following strong setting forth of the 
implications of this text: How shall we carry out the apostle's counsel, 
"Stir up the gift that is in thee?" 

I. Let us clearly recognize that our sacred fire may smolder. To be 
conscious of a peril is to have taken the first step to escape It. 

II. Let us deliberately put our wills behind our gifts. Do not leave 
the gift to look after itself. Put your will behind it. For instance, put 
your will behind your love and ever extend its dominion. Let it be driven 
by a will intent on retaining the glow and multiplying its conquest. 

III. Let us range our imaginations in support of our wills. The will 
and the imagination can together do much to keep any passion burning. 
If will is to drive compassion, imagination must supply the force to will. 
Let the will and the Imagination be at work, for instance, upon the needs 
and Borrows of a great city, and the gift of compassion will be kept burn- 
ing. 

IV. We must "pray without ceasing." We must so dispose our bouIs 
toward heaven that the breath of God can blow upon us continually. If 
we drop prayer, we shut out the moving air; when we take up our abode 
in Lotus Land, our finer passions cool and all the noblest passions fall to 
Bleep. 

V. And, lastly, we must offer the sacrifice of praise. A thankful 
spirit supplies mystic oxygen to every sacred flame. The really thankful 
heart is never narcotized by unfriendly forces in it8 surroundings. "Keep 
thy Bpirlt wakeful with a thankful paBSlon." 

» * * 

Prof. George Lansing Raymond, D.D., in a sermon on this theme says: 

I. Growth is difficult. A man may have a few Christian principles, a 
germ of life, and, for this reason, may find himBelf, by and by, rightly 
situated in the midst of spiritual surroundings; but such a character may 
occupy the same position there that an acorn does in a landscape. Of 
full grown plants, of trees — of strong, broad, comely, graceful trees — how 
few are produced in this spiritual world! Look at the pride, the preju- 
dice, the envy, the gossip, the bigotry, the covetousness and the deception 
that prevail in our nominally Christian communities. 

II. Yet, although growth Is difficult, it is essential. ThingB spiritual, 
like things natural, wither and die if they do not continue to grow. The 
Christian's life must pass beyond Its first Impulse In the feelings. The 
truth Ib that mere feelings ebb as well as flow. This Is their nature. If 
you would promote permanence in that which causes the feeling, you must 
give the man something capable of Increasing in scope and engaging the 
Interest of his entire manhood. 

III. Our Christian growth will be In proportion to the degree of illu- 



420 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



mlnation received from Christ. This is the sun which alike woos the 
confidence of the tiny sprout of religion when first it dares to venture 
from the shelter of its seed, and brings a flush upon the ripening fruit 
that crowds upon the topmost limb as though to catch and to reflect the 
earliest signal of the coming dawn. The knowledge of our Lord and 
Saviour, Jesus Christ! 

* * * 

On the possibility of getting great results from this stirring up 
process, Rev. Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler said: There is prodigious power in 
singleness of love for Jesus — in the doing "just one thing," and that is to 
live solely for the Master. A man of very moderate talents and endow- 
ments becomes a leading mind as soon as Christ gets complete hold of 
him. I can point to more than one plain, modest, moderately educated 
Christian who has attained to a great propelling power in the Church 
simply from the momentum of his godliness. He follows Jesus so heart- 
ily, so projectively, that he carries others along with him by his sheer 
momentum. And that is not brain-power, or purse-power, mainly, but 
heart-power. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Always At It (648) 
Unless we are constantly warring against it by the cultivation of the 
Inner life, our environment will master us. It will suggest our thoughts, 
color our conceptions, rule our habits and actions. It is the natural ten- 
dency which needs the supernatural to counteract it. We go with the 
current unless something mightier than the current pulls us the other way. 
Our thoughts and judgments and modes of life fall like the molten metal 
from a furnace into moulds made ready for them, and inevitably take that 
shape unless some higher power catches them up before they fall and 
fashions them after a diviner pattern. — Rev. J. J. Greenough. 

Neglecting to Stir (649). 
In one of my early pastorates I asked one of my parishioners how she 
was getting along in her Christian life. She replied: "Very poorly. My 
life is a disgrace to me and to the church; it is a disgrace to Jesus 
Christ. I don't understand why it is." "Do you study your Bible every 
day?" I asked. "Oh, no; but I study it occasionally, when I have time." 
A little baby was lying in a baby-carriage near by, and I said: "Sup- 
pose you should feed that baby once in two hours today and once in six 
hours tomorrow, then let it go without eating at all for three or four days 
because you were busy, and then go back and feed it every two hours 
the next day, and keep up that process; do you think the child would 
grow?" "No," she said; "I think the child would die under that treat- 
ment." "And yet that is just the way you are treating your soul." — R. A. 
Torrey, D.D. 

Growth Better Than Permanance (650). 

Growth is better than permanence, and permanent growth is better 
than all. — James A. Garfield. 

Religion is a process repeated, not a process remembered. — C. M. 
Lameon. 



OUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR GROWTH. 



421 



Grow In Grace (651). 
Dr. Joseph Parker declared that the greatest imperative of all is: 
"Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ" The Christian must never be content with a low degree of 
grace while God holds out a high degree as attainable. 

Progress or Retrograde (652). 

In correction of the common fault of backwardness and indisposition 
to learn, Paul bids us observe that growth is expected in the Christian. 
In fact, he tells us that if we are not growing we are dying. This is tha 
law of all life. Nothing is born mature. It passes through a period of 
growth, and it must grow or die. The parent who is delighted with the 
innocent helplessness of his child, and rejoices in its efforts at speech, 
becomes seriously alarmed if this lisping, tottering, help-requiring state 
threatens to become permanent. Would that cessation of growth in the 
spiritual life created as much dismay! Would that it seemed as mon- 
strous and unnatural to have our spiritual as our natural growth checked! 
It would be a startling revelation to us all were our discernment of our 
spiritual condition as keen and direct and true as our vision of the body. 
What do you honestly believe you would see yourself to be? No most 
painful and threatening disease Is so appalling and distressing as the 
adult of twenty or thirty years in the body of a child of six; have you 
spiritually made the growth due to the time you have been a Christian, or 
are you still a child? Have we grown up to maturity? Have we grown 
beyond our associates, or are we conscious that they stand head and 
shoulders above us? Physically, we once needed to be lifted If we were 
to see or touch certain things: we should be humiliated were it so still; 
but Is It so spiritually? Or do we now need to put ourselveB Into a con- 
strained attitude when we wish to attend to things that once were on our 
natural level? Are we able to do the spiritual work of the world? Do 
we find ourselves now standing face to face with things that once tow- 
ered above us and seemed unattainable? Can we stand alone now? Are 
we "men In understanding," able for ourselves to see what Is good, having 
within ourselves a strength sufficient for all the needs of life? — Marcus 
Dods. D.D. 

Worth Doing Well (653). 

I am not here this afternoon to tell you to be religious. You know 
that. I am not here to tell you to seek the kingdom of God. I have come 
to tell you to seek the kingdom of God first. First. Not many people do 
that They put a little religion Into their life — once a week, perhaps. 
They might Just as well let It alone. It is not worth seeking the kingdom 
of God unless we seek It first. Suppose you take the helm out of a ship 
and hang It over the bow, and send that ship to Bea, will It ever reach 
the other side? Certainly not. It will drift about anyhow. Keep religion 
In Its place, and It will take you straight through life, and Btralght to 
your Father In heaven when life 1b over. But If you do not put It In Its 
place, you may Just an well have nothing to do with It. Religion out of 
Ub place In a human life is the moil miserable thing In the world. There 
la nothing that rf>qulrrs so much to be kopt In Its place as religion, and 
Its place Is what? second? third? "First. " — Prof. Henry Drummbnd. 



422 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



Give Christ the Best (654). 
If Christ is to use us to the best advantage, then he must have all 
there is of us. We must give ourselves entirely to his service. Bishop 
Hendrix, In his "Literature of the Saints," says that revealed religion 
shows the delight which God has in a man who gives the whole of him- 
self that he may know and do the will of God. Only when we give our 
all to God can we know him, and can he make use of us. Whatever of 
selfish motives control us, by so much are the intellectual faculties dulled 
and the spiritual perceptions dimmed. We increase our power and en- 
large our influence only as we forget ourselves. Horace used to say that 
no avaricious man could be a poet, and Milton declared that "he who 
would write a great poem must make his life a great poem." God makes 
the largest use of those whose powers are wholly his in fellowship and 
service. — Selected. 

Effort Essential (655). 

The possession of the truth seems such a simple matter, but in fact 
it is very difficult. We never can possess the truth until we have paid the 
price and earned it. Life is built up on the basis of this fact. It is like 
the playing of athletic games. It is very easy to play them by learn- 
ing the rules and sitting on the spectators' benches. The bleacher ath- 
lete has a pleasant task. The real possession of the rules of the game, 
however, is for the contestants who have mastered them as they stand in 
the official book, and then have trained themselves to keep the ruleB in 
the stress of fierce conflict. They have subjected themselves to disci- 
pline and given their time and strength to practice in order that they 
might learn the truth. 

Moral and spiritual progress is purchased In the same way. He who 
knows the truth and is set free by It must earn it by discipline and sacri- 
fice of temporary pleasures for permanent Joy. The truth seems so clear 
and winsome when we see it in the terms of the early life of Jesus. When 
we attempt to repeat the motives of Jesus in our daily conduct, we dis- 
cover the difference between possessing the truth in terms of an intel- 
lectual conviction or a fine emotion and mastering the truth through de- 
votion to its imperial demands. In order to make it effective, we must 
earn it. Subjection and exercise are the price that must be paid for real 
ownership. We never know the full joy of being possessed by the truth 
until we have earned it. — Zion's Herald. 

Individual Effort (655a). 
"The Lord helps those who help themselves" appears to be an almost 
universal principle in nature. A butterfly has difficulty in breaking out 
from its chrysalis; but if you try to help it by cutting the obstacles out 
of its way, it will issue weak and dull in color. Its own struggles con- 
tribute to its perfection. Nature has placed a coat of mail upon the ordi- 
nary crab, struggling with the tempestuous seas. But the hermit crab, 
dwelling in the vacated shells of other animals, has suffered the penalty 
of having his coat of mail exchanged for a thin membrane, while he has 
degenerated generally, has partially or wholly lost several vital organs, 
and been reduced to narrow limits of existence. "To him that hath shall 
be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which 
he hath." 



LXXXVI. SURE. 



"For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he It able to 
keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."— 
2 Timothy 1:12. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
Rev. J. B. Slocum, D.D., gave this text the following homlletlc treat- 
ment: In the midst of the shifting conditions of a life of chance and 
change there are some things that abide. While occasional showers of 
meteors Btcrtle our upward gaze, there is no need for alarm. The great, 
fixed stars are still In their places. In this age of doubt there are some 
certainties more eternal than the stars. The very word by which Paul 
expressed his conviction is full of interest. It is the word "know." At Its 
heart lies that other word, "see." It is as though the apostle had said: 
"My conclusions are the result of diligent observation and profound ex- 
perience." 

How did Paul arrive at his great certainty? By no one road, but by 
several. 

I. First of all, through the exercise of his Intellectual gifts. When 
such a man, governed more by intellectual verities than by mere emo- 
tionalism, exclaims. "I know!" and by that affirmation designates a 
process that has Involved all the rich capacities of his being, it Is well 
to recognize the statement as eminently worthy of acceptation. 

II. Again Paul came to his magnificent conclusion through the test of 
a great personal abandonment If anyone supposes he understands the 
price of Paul's abandonment, let him not forget to picture It in terms of 
our modern day, and Insist that his hero step down from those heights 
of fame and power that would Batisfy the most inordinate ambition. All 
these things which had held a priceless value In the estimate of the as- 
piring young Hebrew he willingly relinquished in order that he might win 
Christ: counting all worldly preferment but loss for the excellency of 
Christ Jesus, that he might know him and the power of his resurrection 
and the fellowship of his Bufferings. 

III. A third process by which Paul reached the high altitudes of faith 
was the via crucls of his sufferings. There Is no language better than his 
own with which to recount the amazing catalogue of what he was pleased 
to term "our light afflictions." Ah, the storms sweeping down on his de- 
voted soul would have driven him to despair had he not been anchored In 
the Immovable conviction, "Kor I know him whom I have believed, and am 
persuaded that he Is able to keep that which I have committed unto him 
against that day." On the eve of his martyrdom this valiant ambassador 
wrote: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have 
kept the faith." 

IV. Can we In our day possess this same certainty that appeared so 
gloriously In the life and service of the apostle? — Selected. 

• • • 

In preaching on "The Ground of Our Confidence." Rev. 8. t. R. Trow- 
bridge, D.D., said: 



424 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



I. What guarantee is there that our aspiration shall become any- 
thing more than aspiration? We despise a man who is always talking 
about the noble things he would like to do. It is pathetic to be a dreamer 
of fine dreams and nothing more. There is this guarantee: that God be- 
gins to work in your life. I believe that God is constantly active with 
beneficent power, but not regardless of our attitude. His energies, his 
love, his goodness, are ever ready to reach forth to our rescue and to 
our comfort, but he awaits our decision. He respects the freedom of our 
choice. He bestows his blessing where there is a sincere longing for 
divine friendship. 

II. These are the good tidings which the New Testament brings us, 
that Christ himself is the incarnation of righteousness, that he is the right, 
and knows the right and teaches the right, and that he stands ready to 
give the bread of life to everyone who is hungry for it. In the temple 
courtyard in Jerusalem Jesus said to the multitude: "I am the bread of 
life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on 
me shall never thirst." And again: "I am the living bread which cometh 
down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread he shall live forever." 
To come into daily personal relation with Christ, to understand from 
him the nature of God, to be quickened by his indignation against deceit 
and greed, to receive for every common task and for every unexpected 
emergency a rich measure of his love — this is to receive spiritual food 
and strength from God Himself. 

III. And if we wish to test these statements from history we are at 
liberty to do so. Fortunately the New Testament contains much more 
than the mere statement of the gospel. The Book of Acts is a revelation 
of the truth in action. When the disciples first came to Jesus they had 
very little to qualify them for the great life work they were destined to 
perform. They were dull in spiritual apprehension. They were quarrel- 
some and self assertive. They were under the influence of Jewish tradi- 
tion and superstitions. But they were not satisfied with their past. There 
was a certain hunger in their hearts which craved for a new life, a surer 
knowledge of the love of God. And in the Book of Acts we find them re- 
joicing in the new strength which they have received. Peter is preaching 
to thousands. John is giving life and health to the beggar at the Gate 
Beautiful. James is braving the anger of King Herod. Others of the 
twelve are scattering in different directions to begin the great missionary 
campaign which carried Christianity to all the provinces of the Roman 
empire. And in all this ministry there is the consciousness that their 
hunger is satisfied in Christ. There is the note of confidence and 
strength. "For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he 
is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Assurance (656). 
Matthew Arnold wrote in honor of the departure of Tennyson: 
"No moaning of the bar; sail forth, strong ship, 

Into that gloom which has God's face for a far light, 
Not a dirge, but a proud farewell from each fond lip, 
And praise, abounding praise, and fame's faint starlight 



SURE. 



426 



No moaning of the bar; musical drifting 
Of time's waves, turning to the eternal sea, 

Death's soft wind, all thy gallant canvas lifting, 
And Christ, thy Pilot to the peace to be." 

How assured one feels when on deck of a great steamer at evening 
time, he hears the voice of the man in the lookout, crying to the night, 
"All's well, and the lights burn bright." The passengers know little of 
the condition of the vessel or of the weather, but they believe the voice 
from the lookout Is It not so in the voyage of life? How little we know 
of dangers or disease, of life or death, of present or future, but the worda 
of our Pilot are full of comfort, as he calls out, "Be of good cheer; I have 
overcome the world. Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end," and 
the lights of heaven are burning bright. — Rev. Edward Whlttier CaswelL 

"The Great Keeper" (657). 

Just as the mountain supports the tiny blade of grass and the modest 
floweret, as well as the giant pine or cedar; just as the ocean bears up 
In safety the sea-bird seated on its crested waves, as well as the leviathan 
vessel; so, while the great Keeper of Israel can listen to the archangels' 
song and the seraphs' burning devotions, he can carry In his bosom the 
feeblest lamb of the fold, and lead gently the most sorrowing spirit. — 
Macduff. 

Carlyle's Failure to Trust (658). 
Is there anything sadder in history than the cry of Carlyle to hla 
dead mother: "Your boy, Tom, long out of his school days, now has fallen 
very lonely, very lame and broken in this pilgrimage of his life. Prom 
your grave In Ecclefechan kirkyard yonder you bid him trust in God, and 
that he will try If he can understand and do, for the conquest of the 
world and of death and of hell does verily lie In that if one can but un- 
derstand and do it." But Carlyle couldn't understand, and he couldn't 
overcome. — Selected. 

Sustained by Trust In Christ (659). 
Blanche Ganoud, a Huguenot woman persecuted under Louis XIV, 
was stripped to the waist and beaten by six women under orders, with 
bunches of willow rods. She was tied to a beam in her kitchen. She 
writes: "At this moment I received the greatest consolation that I can 
ever receive In my life." She said her peace and Joy were beyond de- 
scription. The women said, "We must double the blows, she does not 
fe«l them; she neither speaks nor cries." "How should I have cried?" she 
writes, "since I was swooning with happlnoss within." — George Barton 
Cutten. 

Faith's Serenity (660). 

Now tbls serene and courageous mind Is surely needed In our own 
day. Our age Is full of changes and unrest. I am not afraid of the 
disturbance. I regard It as the workings of the spiritual leaven. The 
widespread ferment Is of God. Established things are being shaken. 
Venerable customs aro being tested and tried. Unexpected presences ap- 
pear on the hill almost every day, and many men are afraid and their 
hearts are sinking In pessimistic forebodings. They fear evil tidings, and 



426 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



every new visitor startles them as he knocks at their door. We need 
to get to the central things. Secondary shelters are of little or no avail. 

We need a profound experimental knowledge of the power of God's 
grace. We must have an experience that no new setting of circum- 
stances can ever shake. We must know God as a vital, vitalizing pres- 
ence, whose work in our hearts can never be gainsaid. It is only an ex- 
perience of grace that can enrich the trust that gives serenity. The man 
whose heart is resting in the Lord can watch events like a man who is 
watching the sunrise. — J. H. Jowett, D.D. 

Conquering by Confidence (661). 
It is told of Blandina, a maiden martyr of the second century, that 
after she had endured stripes, tearing by beasts and the red-hot iron 
chair, she was enclosed in a net and thrown to a bull. Being tossed by 
the animal for some time, she was quite superior to her pain, through her 
hope, faith, and her fellowship with Christ, and at length breathed out 
her soul to God. — Cutten. 

Luther's Confidence (662). 
When Martin Luther had stood his trial before the German Emperor 
and was shut up in the Castle of Wartburg and the Emperor had issued 
an edict that all his writings were to be destroyed, it seemed as if his 
enemies had triumphed over him and his "seed," spiritually, was cut off. 
But Luther was a strong, burly man with a robust, overcoming faith, and 
he closed his letters from his prison thus: "In the region of the birds, 
who sing beautifully on the trees, praising God night and day with all 
their might." — John P. Cowan, D.D. 

"I Lived" (663). 

One of the actors In the French Revolution, who was asked what he 
did during several awful weeks of peril, replied, "I lived." Sometimes it 
is Just enough to live. Let us hold confidently by the great truths, prom- 
ises, and hopes of our faith, and they will not fail us in the great crises 
of life and death. — Watkinson. 

The Vision of the Keeping Christ (664). 
The world is divided sharply into "drudges and dreamers," and as we 
take away the latter only the former are left We are told that "where 
there is no vision the people perish," and this is not a truth outside the 
range of common life. We must get our feet upon the truth that some 
things have been settled; that there are some facts of religion that can 
no more "flux in the fires of the crucible of criticism, than gold can be 
melted by the flicker of a fire-fly." If God has put into our soul any vis- 
Ions or signs of a greater day, then let us walk in the light which is the 
light of all our seeing. Blessed are we if we behold, though we may not 
go. If we are true to such heavenly vision as is vouchsafed to us, we may 
safely leave ourselves with Him at whose right hand are the eternal 
years. — Ambrose Shepherd, D.D. 

Faith and Cheer (665). 
Wise nature lovers tell us that already spring has come with the 
lengthening of the days and the renewed power of the less-slanting sun. 



SURE. 



427 



Take a country walk with such a one, and he will point out a multitude of 
tokens of the spring. It is a cheerful thought, even if it Beems to illus- 
trate the power of seeing what one most desires to see. Expressed In 
terms of thought life, this faculty of vision might indeed be called a sort 
of self-reflection; it is really a free choice between alternatives. One 
muBt have knowledge and inward cheer to feel the spring so vividly 
through the stinging of the cold. It involves in kindred things a whole 
some use of the powers of will. We may concentrate our attention on the 
wintry aspect of the world, or we may look through this to find some 
reality of spring. It is like the observer's swing of the telescope — we may 
lower it until we see nothing but the sordid details of some distant dust 
heap, or we may raise it to make discoveries among the stars. A mere 
thoughtless optimism is, of course, foolish and impossible; but It is 
wholesome for the soul to cultivate the habit of raising the telescope. It 
means not merely a way to get enjoyment out of life, but also to contrib- 
ute to the Joy and strength of others. The reflection of such an inward 
cheer is one of the best gifts we have to offer to the world. And It Is 
possible to reach possession of it by cultivating the habit of seeking out 
the best, even In wintry experiences and stormy days, — Boston Transcript. 



LXXXVII. THE WARFARE ENDED: THE 
CROWN WON. 

"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the 
faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and 
not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." — 
2 Timothy 4:7, 8. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. Thomas Guthrie's skill as a homilist and as a sympathetic 
Interpreter of Scripture found striking illustration In his unfolding of this 
Terse. He said: 

I. Look at the Christian life under the aspect of a fight. This aspect 
of life is not peculiar to that of the Christian. Indeed, bo far from the 
followers of the world being exempt from toil and hardship, it would not 
take a man half the care and time and trouble to get to heaven, which it 
takes any man to get rich, and many a man to get to hell. The question, 
therefore, is not whether we shall fight, but what for, and on whose side — 
on that of Jesus, whose award is life, or on that of sin, whose wages is 
death. Now, with regard to the Christian's fight, I remark 1. He has to 
fight against the world. 2. He has to fight against Satan. 

II. The character of the Christian's fight. It is a good fight. 1. 
necause it 1b in a good cause. Your enemies are not of your kindred, 
bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh; they are the enemies of God and 
Chrlat, of virtue and liberty, of light and peace, of your children, and of 
your race, of your bodies and of your souls; tyrants that would bind you 
In chains worse than iron, and burn, not your house above your head, but 
yourself in hell forever. 2. Because here victory Is unmlngled Joy. It 
is not so In other fights. The laurelB that are won where groans of suffer- 
ing mingle with the shouts of battle are steeped in tears: and when can- 
non roar, and bells ring out a victory, and shouting crowds throng the 
streets, and illuminations turn night into day, dark is many a home where 
fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, widows and orphans, weep for 
the brave who shall never return. There are thorns In victory's proudeBt 
crown. He, whom men call the Iron Duke, is reported to have said that 
there was nothing so dreadful as a battle won, except a battle lost. Thank 
God, our joy over sins Blain, bad passions subdued, Satan defeated, has to 
suffer no such abatements. 

♦ • * 

Speaking of death's significance for the Christian, Rev. Dr. Cleland 
B. McAfee, Bald: Dr. Cuyler once told me that when Newman Hall was 
on his deathbed they asked him If ho felt any pain. "No," he answered, 
"not any pain — nothing to disturb the solemnity of dying." There Is noth- 
ing In our Christian faith to lessen that solemnity. It takes all the sting 
out of death; quiets all nervous dread of It for ourselves or our friends. 
But It leaves death still a great, outstanding, solemn renllty. The use of 
petals of flowers Instead of earth at the moment of committal of the body 



430 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



to the grave is but a subterfuge, an effort to cover up reality. Death is 
not a flower fact; it is an earth fact for us all. 

L Death is a solemn fact because of its absolute certainty. In most 
other experiences we have some power of determination, some choice of 
will. Here we are in the grip of forces with which we have absolutely 
nothing to do, beyond accepting their results. Defiance or rebellion is like 
the fighting of a child against the tide. Here is your rich man, able to 
have all human skill deployed against death; there is your poor beggar, 
dropping on the street, to be carried to the nearest refuge. Both are the 
same to death. Death does not call by the "Blue Book." No man can 
ever evade it Death is a certainty. Can we afford not to be solemn about 
it? 

II. Death is solemn because of its suddenness. Sometimes we say, 
"He was a long time dying." But he was not. There was one instant in 
which the whole momentous change was made. He was living — in an 
instant he was dead. We are never fully prepared for the death of our 
loved ones. We say we are ready, but when death becomes fact, we catch 
our breath, and things change about us. That is part of God's plan. Death 
is a common experience, but it is not meant to be commonplace. We can 
never adjust ourselves to it before it comes. Any death that comes near 
us demands sharp changes in life. It is not like a gradual curve in the 
road; it is a corner where we change direction. 

III. Death is solemn because of its perpetual mystery. Standing 
beside a deathbed, an aged physician looked solemnly on the dead face 
and said under his breath: "I have seen this many times, but I do not 
know to this hour what has happened!" Thoughtful men do not know. 
Life in its coming and in its going is always mysterious. While it con- 
tinues here in the familiar surroundings, we have experience to guide us. 
When it goes out into the realm beyond the grave, experience fails. What 
changes are made? What is life without this body in which we have 
lived? How does the soul live? What must we think of an event which 
in one instant will take us away from all earthly tasks and opportuni- 
ties? And if the finality be not simply in the matter of earthly service, 
but also in the matter of eternal destiny, how doubly solemn it becomes? 

Our Christian faith makes no pretense of disturbing the solemnity 
of dying. It does not remove one of these great solemnizing facts. It 
only gives us a faith by which we may front them without fear or anx- 
iety. Jesus did not go blithely to the tomb; he went bravely and with 
untrembling feet. For a Christian, death comes as a glad event by rea- 
son of his faith. In death he goes home; in death he rests from his 
labors, while his works follow him. But he walks softly as he approaches 
it. The most momentous change of his existence, he approaches it In 
the faith of his triumphant Master, fearlessly, but solemnly. 

* * * 

I. Surely the thought that the presence of death is only the pres- 
ence of one of God's messengers who comes to open a door from gloom 
to glory should fill the human heart with joy. Earth's shadows darken 
the human side of the door, but the light of God's kingdom makes the 
spiritual side gloriously bright. If we could only keep our spiritual eyes 
unblinded by tears we would see in the presence of death a figure hold- 



THE WARFARE ENDED; THE CROWN WON. 



431 



Ing out to the soul its passport to the place prepared by Him who passed 
through the same gate and robbed death of its sting forever and for- 
ever. If we could only keep our spiritual ears unvibrant to "earth so 
full of dreary noises," to the cries of "men with wailing in their voices," 
we should hear the music "of harpers harping with their harps" and 
singing "Glory and (Tominion and honor and power be unto our God 
for ever and ever." If we only could forget our language of woe that 
cries, "What shall I do? Oh, Absalom, my son, would God I had died 
for thee," we would hear and understand that other dialect whose words 
are full of eternal compensation, "I heard a voice saying unto me, write. 
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. Yea, saith the Spirit, that 
they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." 

II. To the presence of death the Christian should gladly give his 
hand and say, "Lead me wheresoever thou will and open my mouth to 
speak the blessedness of the hope of immortality." "The sting of death 
is sin," but to those who sleep in Jesus there is no sting, for there is 
no sin. "The strength of sin is the law," but they who sleep in Jesua 
know no law save of triumph through him who hath loved them and 
washed them from their sin. And so it comes to pass that the grave has 
no victory. 

III. The presence of death! Does it fill any heart with dismay? 
Let it no longer! The presence which has taken or shall take your 
dearest loved one forever from your sight is only God's high ambassador 
sent to lead that loved one to the couch which God has spread for his 
beloved. Comfort your heart with those wonderful words, "He giveth 
his beloved sleep." 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Facing Death Fearlessly (666). 
Many a man has felt a catch in his throat and a thrill in his blood 
aB he listened to Robert Louis Stevenson's "Requiem," beginning: 
"Under the wide and starry sky 
Dig the grave and let me lie 
Glad did I live, and gladly die, 
And I laid me down with a will." 
and has thought of the lonely grave on its mountalntop in the sounding 
Pacific. Death often looked very near to Stevenson, and we can imagine 
that he and Henley — during that year or more In Edinburgh when Hen- 
ley was In a hospital and Stevenson was his frequent visitor— used to 
speak of the words by which they would wish to be remembered. Henley 
cried : 

"Out of the night which covers me 
Black as the Pit from pole to pole, 
I thank whatever godB may be 
For my unconquerable soul." 

He was less debonair than Stevenson and more bitter, but not less 
trave. 

In 1880 Stevenson wrote a letter to Sidney Colvln from which we 
quote. Sick and poor, and practically stranded In San Francisco, he 
writes frankly of his discouragements, but whimsically, as always: 



432 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



When I die . . . you can put upon my tomb . . . 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

Born 1850, of a family of 

Engineers, Died . . . 
Home is the sailor, home from sea, 
And the hunter home from the hill. 

You, who pass this grave, put aside hatred; love kindness; 
be all services remembered in your heart and all offenses par- 
doned; and as you go down again among the living, let this be 
your question: Can I make some one happier this day before I 
lie down to sleep? Thus the dead man speaks to you from the 
dust; you will hear no more from him. 

Who knows, Colvin, but I may thus be of more use when I am 
buried than ever when I was alive? The more I think of It, the more 
earnestly do I desire this. — The Congregationalist. 

Fit for the Kingdom (667). 

Our fitness for Christ's kingdom is thus tested. And in the end 
what will all else avail if we have not helped the work for which he 
lived and died? Are we so captivated by the work he gives us to do 
that we never dream of looking back? Has his idea of life and its uses 
such a charm for us, and does it so appeal to us, that we are compelled 
to turn our back on all competing ideals? Do we in point of fact give 
ourselves unreservedly and uncompromisingly to his way of life, not 
sorry to leave for ever behind us the pomps and vanities, the indulgences 
and shallow pleasures, the sinful excitements and wicked gratifications 
which so often form the substance — if it can be called substance — of 
human life? In other words, have we attained to know Christ? For, 
to know him, to see him as he really is, is to see that in him we have 
that "pearl of price" for which a man gladly sells all that he has. 

If, then, we would be Christ's followers, we must be prepared to 
make his experience ours, his work our work, his person our chief joy. 
In other words, we must be prepared to be unworldly, consecrated, de- 
voted. Who would not rejoice over him of whom with assurance we can 
say, "Whatever befalls that man, he will play his part in this world 
well, and will at length enter into the joy of his Lord?" 

Would that we were all like Matthew, who has been called "the 
pattern of obedience to divine vocations, the model of prompt submis- 
sion to holy inspirations," and of whom it has been said that he — 

"Left all for God, 
Self and the world and wealth, 
At God's one word 
Without question, without reserve, 
Without delay." 
Happy In Death (668). — Marcus Dods. 

Charles N. Crittenton, who devoted his life and ample fortune to 
the establishment of homes for unfortunate women in over seventy 
cities, died as he lived, a happy Christian. Not only his last words, but 



THE WARFARE ENDED; THE CROWN WON. 



433 



all that he said during the closing hours was recorded. Here are the 
things he said: 

"It is God's will — he knows best." 

"I have tried to be a friend to these poor girls — always their friend." 

"There will be no dark river when Jesus comes." 

The entire chapter of Isaiah 53, word for word. 

The Lord's Prayer. 

Many passages of Scripture. 

The Apostles' Creed. 

"Thank God for the victory." 

Tried to sing the "Glory Song." 

"Jesus, blessed Jesus." 

"Florence, my baby — my baby." 

"Good-bye, Jesus is coming." 

"Beautiful — all Is beautiful." 

"Jesus 1b here." 

"Glory — glory." — Selected. 

Foregleams of Immortality (669). 

(From "Eulogy of a Friend and Colleague in the Fifty-third Con- 
gress.") 

I shall not believe that even now his light is extinguished. If the 
Father deigns to touch with divine power the cold and pulseless heart 
of the buried acorn, and make it burst forth from its prison walls, will 
he leave neglected in the earth the soul of man, who was made in the 
image of his Creator? If he stoops to give to the rose-bush, whose with- 
ered blossoms float upon the breeze, the sweet assurance of another 
spring-time, will he withhold the words of hope from the sons of men 
when the frosts of winter come? If matter, mute and inanimate, though 
changed by the forces of nature Into a multitude of forms, can never 
die, will the Imperial spirit of man suffer annihilation after it has paid 
a brief visit, like a royal guest, to this tenement of clay? 

Rather let us believe that he, who in his apparent prodigality, wastes 
not the rain-drop, the blade of grass, or the evening's sighing zephyr, but 
makes them all to carry out his eternal plan, has given immortality to 
the mortal and gathered to himself the generous spirit of our friend. 
Instead of mourning, let us address him with the poet: 
"Thy day has come, not gone; 

Thy sun has risen, not set; 

Thy life Is now beyond 

The reach of death or change. 

Not ended — but begun. 

Oh, noble soul! Oh, gentle heart! Hall and farewell!" 

— William Jennings Bryan. 



LXXXVIII. THE SECRET OF ENDURANCE. 



"For he endured as seeing him who Is Invisible." — Hebrews 11:27. 
ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
Rev. R. S. Candlish, D.D., used the following line of explication In 
developing this text: 

I. What Is this virtual seeing of him who is invisible? There 
must be wrought in me, between God and me, some sympathy, some 
good understanding and fellow feeling. There must be established be- 
tween him and me some personal relation of mutual confidence and 
unity. There must, In a word, be formed a certain close unity of faith 
working by love. Then will that quasi vision "as seeing" be realized; 
that vivid sense and keen grasp of "my Lord and my God," as personally 
present which compensates for my never having set on him my bodily 
eyes. 

II. The Joy of the Lord is your strength. Not only at the Com- 
munion Table do you rest, but in the field of toil or of battle you endure, 
as seeing him who is invisible. So Christ himself, the man Christ Jesus, 
endured. The secret of his endurance was that with the eye of faith he 
always saw the Father. The Holy Ghost strengthens us to endure as 
Beeing the unseen Saviour, even as he strengthened him to endure as 
seeing the unseen Father. It is In the felt and realized presence of a 
Divine person, unseen in one 6ense, but in another virtually and vividly 
seen, that your strength to endure lies. And he is to be seen by you, 
not merely as an object of contemplation in a leisure hour, but as in 
the time of danger, standing beside you, conversing with you, calling you 
by name, and bidding you be strong and of a good courage. 

* * * 

In an eloquent sermon on this text Rev. Ambrose Shepherd, D.D., 
said: "He that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved." 

We cannot do in the higher life what we can sometimes do In the 
lower — we cannot make sure of the evening by a good use of the morn- 
ing. There is a warfare from which there Is no discharge on this 
planeL 

L Apply It first to the life we now live in the flesh. "I keep under 
my body, and bring it into subjection; lest by any means, after that I 
have preached to others, I myself should be rejected." This is the last 
thing we should have expected Paul, of all men, to say about himself. 
But taking his confession at its face value, It may be read as a warn- 
ing not against the posslbllltlos of passion, but of passion exhausted. 

II. How many men are there In middle and later life who come to 
believe In nothing, to hope In nothing, on earth or In heaven which has 
really to do with the things unseen and eternal? It Is common to find 
when a man has, If not all he wants, yet all he needs, that getting older 
he Is becoming meaner. What are called the growing Infirmities of hla 
body are coming to bo the grave of his soul. Many a man who Is out- 
wardly saved by bis strenuouB years Is, In his relaxation, a pitiable 
death In life. The right which he claims to indulge himself on the score 



436 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



of his years may be a right which wrongs all that has gone before. 
. . . What an inspiration it is to young and generous natures to hear 
an old man of proved character, intelligence, and service, affirm his un- 
shaken trust in the things of God and a higher humanity. It is when a 
man's work is done that, in this sense, he does his best work. When, 
in the evening of our days, we can still believe that good is good, al- 
though from the prepossessions of earlier years we find it hard to rec- 
ognize it as good, we quicken others with a diviner life, and uplift them 
with a new courage. "For myself," says a wise teacher, "my religion and 
my convictions about many questions that agitate men's minds and hearts 
are, on this side of the grave, unalterable. But I will ever pray for the 
open heart which includes all attempts to do good as within the great 
harmonies of God." 

III. "Rather than my life being over," writes a man of nearly four- 
score years, "it is a series of new beginnings in seeking and finding 
fresh recruits for the service. And just before I go home, I want my 
last find for the Master to be the biggest and the best." "It is not," said 
Wellington, "that the British are necessarily better soldiers or braver 
men than the French. Where we had our advantage was in this — we 
could always keep on a quarter of an hour longer." 

* * * 

There is a saying among the British people that "the British soldier 
can be just as brave as any soldier in the world, and be brave for fifteen 
minutes longer." 

I. It is often that last fifteen minutes that wins the battle. The 
beginning of a task may be easy; to keep at it will be harder; and to 
keep at it till it is really done is the hardest of all. One of the most 
pathetic facts in the world is that so many give up before they reach 
the end. 

II. How can we make ourselves persevere? That is the practical 
side of this subject. What can we do to make sure that we shall not be 
among those who drop out of the race? What can we say to others that 
will help them to stay on the course till the race is run? 

III. The great thing in running a race or doing a task Is to keep 
one's heart on the goal. It is important to watch one's step and to take 
account of present circumstances, and be careful that each movement is 
skillfully made; but the thing that keeps us successfully at the task is 
the pull of the prize at the end. 

IV. Another motive that should keep us true is the realization that 
if we slip, some one else will go down too. "No man liveth to himself." 
Every life is linked with other lives. If you persevere, others will per- 
severe; If you fail, others will fail. — The Christian Herald. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Endurance (670). 

The Christian's perseverance is a good deal like his courage in one 
respect: he can be Christlike only in proportion to his perseverance. 
To the ordinary mortal, however, the difference between courage and 
perseverance is a good deal like that between speed and endurance. 
The one can be cultivated much more easily than the other and you are 



THE SECRET OF ENDURANCE. 



437 



likely to have daily opportunities to display the one where the chances 
for the other are less frequent. After all, perhaps it is the need for per- 
severance which comes home to most of the people most of the time. 
Plutarch, a man of many wise words, gives us another angle, too, when 
he remarks, "Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many 
things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield them- 
selves up when taken little by little." Therefore "let us not be weary in 
well-doing; for in due season we shall reap if we faint not!" — Rev. Q. J. 
Anderson. 

Faint-Heart and Strong-Hope (671). 

Believing in the possibility is half the battle. 

Doubting is the main contributing factor of defeat. 

Some one has recently worked out the following startling data con- 
cerning the conquest of the impossible. It rings out a combined rebuke 
and challenge for us as we stand confronted by a great crisis opportun- 
ity In our church life. 

"Did you say, 'It cannot be done?'" 

That is the cry of every timid bouI of little faith and feeble purpose 
when confronted with a task demanding courage, concentration and 
strength of will. 

Have you observed what has happened to the obstacles found in 
the path of progress during the past 40 years? Here are some of the 
visions of the dreamers of the world in the last 40 years — do you re- 
member what you said about them? 

In 1876: We shall draw from the open air an Invisible force that 
will run our machinery, pull our trains and light our cities. 

We shall transmit the human voice and converse with ease over a 
telegraph wire. 

We shall abandon the pen for type in writing our business letters. 
We shall also rocord and reproduce the human voice for the pleasure 
and profit of mankind. 

"Dreams, dreams; it cannot be done." 

In 1880: Let us conquer yellow fever and cut In half the death rate 
from tuberculosis, typhoid and diphtheria. 

Let us build a torpedo boat that will speed safely and swiftly many 
fathoms under the sea. 

Let us build a compact engine of high power and have "horseless 
carriages." 

"Utterly Impossible; It cannot be done." 

In 1895: We Rhall send telegrams through space along electrical 
waves that follow the earth's curve; it will be of great value on the high 
seas. 

Let ns also photograph motion and reproduce It In moving pictures. 
"More dreams; It cannot bo done." 

In 1898: Commodore Dewey will fight and defeat the Spanish fleet 
and forta In Manila Ray without losing a man or ship. 
"Hopeless; It cannot be done." 

In 1902: We shall have flying machines that will travel as fast as 100 
miles per hour. 

"Preposterous; It cannot be done." 



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In 1909: The North and South Poles will yet be reached by man. 
"The dream of centuries; it cannot be done." 

In 1910: China, the oldest and most absolute government, will be 
changed into a Republic. 

"Wildest suggestion of all; it cannot be done." 

But all these marvelous things have been done, have they not? 

Is it not inspiring to reflect upon the success-compelling force of 
the brave, strong, purposeful men who have in your day performed these 
and other "impossibilities?" 

For the Christian the secret of enduring grace lies in ever keeping 
In view the vision of "him who is invisible." 

Our Divine Helper (672). 
There is a legend of an old church in England — how centuries ago, 
when the monks wer*» rearing it, a new temple for the worship of their 
God, there came among the workers a strange monk who took on himself 
the heaviest tasks. Once when a gigantic beam was needed for an 
important position and when, with great effort, it was lifted to its place, 
it was found to be some feet too short. The builders had tried their 
best, they haC used tie most careful measurement they knew, but there 
it was, too short, and their utmost skill could not find remedy. The night 
closed in upon the tired workers, and they went to their rest with sore 
heart, leaving only this unknown monk looking at the failure. But in the 
morning when the workers came forth, they saw the beam exactly in 
its place, lengthened to the precise dimensions needed, and resting 
accurately on its supports. But the unknown monk had disappeared. 
Yet the workers knew him now, and were certain they could carry the 
temple onward to its topmost turret. For he wh6 had been working with 
them was none other than the Lord himself. They were not unhelped 
toilers. Nor are we. — Selected. 

One Who Endured (673). 

Before the Boxer uprising in China, a young Chinaman had been 
in attendance upon one of the Presbyterian schools. The studies had 
been too much for him and he had to give up. But while at school he 
had learned to know Jesus as his Saviour. He asked that he might be 
permitted to go back to his old home as a representative of the mission. 
So anxious was he that some literature was given him and he went 
forth as a colporteur. On his trip he learned much of the plans of the 
Boxers and decided he must do something to warn the Christians of 
their danger. He went to the Methodist Compound, the one in greatest 
danger, and to Christians throughout the city, and warned them of what 
was to occur. Then away from the city, thirty miles out into the coun-^ 
try, he hastened with his message until all had been told. The Boxers 
caught him, asked him if he was a Christian, and he "began to preach 
unto them Jesus." They beat him and maltreated him and finally took 
his life. And he passed to his reward proclaiming the love of God for 
his executioners. He is but one of a great multitude who were once 
heathen, but who, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, have rejoiced 
to be adjudged worthy to suffer for his name. — Selected. 



LXXXIX. LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 

"Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about ... let us run with 
patience the race that Is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author 
and finisher of our faith." — Hebrews 12:1, 2. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

In a notable sermon on this theme Rev. Dr. John H. Jowett said: 
The ways of time, and of our own time, too, are littered with the tear- 
Btained witness of men who have sought the perfection of man without 
the Christ. Their expedients did not reach the torpor chamber, and the 
sleeper Btill slept on. Leave out the redeeming Christ, the reconciling 
Saviour, the reconciling Lord, and what is there left to us? Clean ideals 
will not suffice. Sonorous abstractions are not enough. Emersonian 
maxims will not wake the dead. We might as well take a score of fairy 
lamps, and tie them on a 6tring, and swing them across our garden of 
sleeping Beeds, and expect the silent march of summer pomp and glory, 
as assume that the proclamation of mere maxims will lead men out of 
wintry bondage Into the summer glory of strength and liberty. Ask 
those who have tried this painful path of unevangelistlc enterprise, and 
you will find that their testimony is complete. Men may be in need of 
an ideal, but they need a Saviour infinitely more. Men may be in need 
of you and me; but the best use we can make of ourselves is to tell 
them about the redeeming Lord. In the gospel of his grace there is 
heat enough to get through the coldest clod. When everything else has 
failed, or acts only as an opiate to deepen the slumber of the sleeper, 
the gospel of Christ will get through and awake him out of his Bleep. 
If every man is to be perfected we must first of all preach a living and 
saving Christ. 

* * * 

Rev. George C. McKiernan used the following In Betting forth this 
truth: Throughout one's life here Satan continues to harass and tempt 
and annoy, trying by any means to induce one to return to sin and to a 
life of rebellion against God. But the power that saves 1b also a power 
that can protect against satanic influence and finally present the saved 
one "faultless before the presence of hla glory with exceeding Joy." 

And thus one's Christian character Is developed to Btalwartness and 
power, gradually becoming more and more like the character of Jesus 
Christ. That this might be true for each of us, there la need that we 
know Jesus as a companion; that we walk In close fellowship with him 
In the dally life; that we take him with us Into our family, business and 
social relations, and that we forego the pleasures of the world that have 
a tendency to keep us from distinct separation from those who repudiate 
the love of God. The affections of the Christian should be on things 
above, not on things of the earth; on things eternal, not on things tem- 
poral; on things which abide, not on things which are only transient. 
It has been suggested that to ascend In a balloon one must throw out 
the sand or the ballast; and to ascend In Christian character and Influ- 
ence one must discard those things which hold him with relentless grasp 



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to the ways of the world. There is a quaint, homely story told of a 
soldier who said to his commanding officer, "I have taken a prisoner." 
"Bring him along with you," replied the officer. "He won't let me," 
answered the soldier. "Come yourself, then," said his superior. "I 
can't," said the soldier. This represents to a nicety the sad condition of 
many professed Christians. They cannot take the world with them 
into the Kingdom and they cannot break away from the world that they 
might enter the Kingdom of God themselves. Separation from the 
world is demanded of conversion, and a continued separation from the 
world is insisted upon that the Christian may grow in grace and in the 
knowledge and love of his Saviour and into his likeness. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. Kelley said: Spurgeon quoted these lines In a sermon I 
heard him preach: 
The king is come to marshal us, in all his armor drest; 
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest. 
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing, 
Down all our line, a deafening shout: "God save our lord the king!" 
And then King Henry, speaking to his army, said: 
"And if my standard-hearer fall, as fall full well he may, 
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray, 
Press where ye see my white plume shine amidst the ranks of war, 
And be your orifli.mme today the helmet of Navarre." 
And then Spurgeon held up Christ as the divine Captain, the leader 
who goes forth to certain conquest, who should kindle our souls and 
our devotion a thousandfold more than any human leader that ever 
called men to his standard. 

Dear young people, rich and fine with the learning of the schools and 
the discipline of training; now, when the call is sounding, 
"The Son of God goes forth to war; 
Who fellows in his train?" 
summon your whole being — "body, soul, and spirit," as the old knights 
used to say — to respond, 

"Be swift, my soul, to answer him! 
Be jubilant, my feet!" 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
What Men See When They Look (674). 
Christ is to each what each has found him. To the soul that has 
sunk in the mire, he is a Saviour; to the intellect that has wrestled 
with doubt, he is a Guide; to the heart that has sorrowed he is a Comforter. 
Each should travel his appointed road and accept and employ the ex- 
perience which it brings. It is thus that we grow in grace. — David Smith. 

Looking Unto Jesus (675). 
But all the while, did we only see, 
We walk in the Lord's own company; 
We fight, but 'tis he who nerves our arm; 
He turns the arrows which else might harm, 
And out of the storm he brings a calm. 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 



441 



The work which we count so hard to do, 
He makes it easy, for he works too; 
The days that are long to live are his, 
A bit of his bright eternities, 
And close to our need his helping is. 

—Henry Van Dyke, D.D. 

Assimilation (676). 
If we would be much like Christ, we must be much with him. If we 
would become transformed into his image, thoroughly made over so as 
to be hardly recognizable for the same, we must "with unveiled face" 
and unclosed eye and untiring mind and uncorrupted will tarry in his 
presence and look long at his glory. There is no other method. We 
come thus to take his point of vision in our perception of things; we 
acquire hia habit of mind; we catch his tone; we reflect his views; we 
adopt his policy; we unconsciously imitate his ways. His words sing 
into our soul; his plans take possession of us; his very glance inspires 
us; his inmost purposes become our own; and, scarcely conscious of 
the process, without knowing when or how, we find ourselves merged 
into his being, copies of his character. It is somewhat thus that a devoted 
wife comes in time closely to resemble her husband even in face, a son 
the revered father, a student the adored instructor. It is not a process 
that can be very much hurried. Some plates are more sensitive than 
others to such impression. Our part is to cultivate the sensitiveness and 
see that there is no intermission in the exposure. Given time enough, 
together with steadfast resolution and a vigorous use of every available 
means, and the results are both sure and amazing. — Pittsburgh Christian 
Advocate. 

Fellowship With Christ (677). 

The upward way never grows eaBy. There Is always the cross to 
carry, the burden to bear. But there Is Joy in the new views that we 
obtain as we climb higher and higher. There is a sense of satisfaction 
that we are counted worthy to enter new fields of service and to have 
new fellowship with the Saviour In his sufferings. And as we ascend 
In this upward way, a truer, deeper love for God and for man fills our 
souls, and the blessing of a nobler, brighter, stronger, happier life set- 
tles down upon our spirits. — Selected. 

The Only Remedy (678). 
It is no use to flog, flog, flog at idle Christians end try to make them 
work. There is only one thing that will set them to work, and that la 
that they shall live nearer their Master and find out more of what they 
owe to him; and so render themselves up to be his instruments for any 
purpose for which he may choose to use them. — Alexander Maclaren. 

What the Vision Costs (679). 
O thou who art the ideal of what I ought to be, the ideal of what 
mv Father would have me to be, come Into my soul and shine! Give mo 
one gllmpne of the brightness of thy glory! I know it will send me, not 
Deac«, but a sword; I know It will strike me blind to all that I once 
thought beautiful. I shall never again prize my attainments when I have 



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discerned thy splendor. What matter! — come, Lord Jesus! At the price 
of my own humiliation, come! Though my flower of self-esteem shall 
wither, though my pride of life shall fade, though my peace of ignorance 
shall vanish, come! Though my ocean shall dwindle to a pool, though 
my palace shall shrink into a hut, though my silver shall he tarnished 
and my gold shall lose its glow, come! Come, though thy shining be 
my shadow; come, though thy presence be my poverty; come, though 
the vision tell me I am vile! I would rather be humble in sight of the 
stars than proud in lighting my tapers. It is worth while to see my 
spots if I see them because of sunshine. It is worth while to hear my 
discords if I hear them because of harmony. It is worth while to find 
my darkness if I detect it by finding day. The rending of the heart will 
not ruffle me if it is rent by the dawning of thy Spirit. — George Mathe- 
son, D.D. 

Our Pattern (680). 

Consider Jesus, consider this "greatest of all believers," this perfect 
pattern of faith, this crowning and unquestionable instance of faith's 
trial and triumph. Consider him till you feel assured that this is the 
life for you, this the ideal you would fain realize. If you need encour- 
agement — and who does not? — here you will find it. However dark and 
perplexed and slippery your way has become, however complicated and 
difficult and full of anxiety your life is, you need not be defeated. — Marcus 
Dods, D.D. 

Christ Our Example (681). 

The trivial things of life are to be guided and shaped by reference 
to the highest of all things, the example of Jesus Christ; and that in 
the whole depth of his humiliation, and even in regard to his cross and 
passion. — Alexander Maclaren. 

Wanted Vision Seers (682). 

O, for a new generation of day-dreamers, young men and maidens 
who shall behold visions, idealists who shall see themselves as the heroes 
of coming conflicts, the heroines of yet unwritten epics of triumphant 
compassion and stainless love. From their hearts shall spring the renais- 
sance of faith and hope. The ancient charm of true romance shall flow 
forth again to glorify the world in the brightness of their ardent eyes — 
"The light that never was on land or sea. 
The consecration and the poet's dream." 
As they go out from the fair gardens of a visionary youth into the wide, 
confused, turbulent field of life, they will bring with them the marching 
music of a high resolve. They will strive to fulfill the fine prophecy of 
their own best desires. They will not ask whether life is worth living — 
they will make it so. They will transform the sordid "struggle for ex- 
istence" into a glorious effort to become that which they have admired 
and loved. — Henry Van Dyke, D.D. 

The Living Christ Our Helper (683). 
God does not wish men to be vanquished in one point, or In many. 
The purpose of the Christian religion is to keep men from being de- 
feated, or if it finds them overcome, to enable them to win back their 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 



443 



victory. Christianity comes to the man standing in the bread line, and 
says to him, "God will help you to earn a decent living for yourself once 
more." Christianity comes to the man in State Prison, and offers him 
another chance to be honest, and to win the confidence of his fellows; 
Christianity comes to the drug-fiend and the drunkard, promising them 
victory over their morbid appetites; Christianity comes to the man with 
a violent temper, and offers him a bit and bridle. 

The trouble with us is that while we realize how strong the foes of 
character are, and how easily they get the upper hand of us, we forget 
God, we forget that there is unlimited power at our disposal. 

It is not enough for us to have a high purpose, it is not enough for ub 
to keep the life of Christ ever before us as our example, and his words 
as our guide. A great many people, of whom these things are true, are 
still very far from victorious. What they forget is that Jesus Christ is 
not dead, but alive. The same personality who in Palestine, nineteen 
hundred years ago, opened the eyes of the blind, unstopped deaf ears, 
and healed the sick, is still with us, though unseen. — Rev. James Elmer 
Russell. 

The Perfect Pattern (684). 

What is this pattern of virtuous living that is practically acknowl- 
edged by every one today? Nothing other than the type of man whom 
JesuB exalted and whom Jesus makes. Put together all that the ethical 
societies, the books on morals and the good-citizenship propagandas say 
concerning right living and human service, and you will be struck by the 
fact that Jesus long ago outlined the same sort of an ideal individual, 
and that he has been for nineteen centuries producing, not a great many, 
perhaps, compared with vast millions of the world's population, but cer- 
tainly enough to preserve the type. And the deeper one goes into the 
personal life with Jesus, the mora ODe seeks to live daily in the spirit 
of the fifteenth chapter of St. John, the better man he is sure to be. — 
H. A. Bridgman. 



\ 



XC. THE CHANGING YEARS AND THE 
UNCHANGING CHRIST. 

"Jesus Christ the same, yesterday, and today, and forever." — Hebrews 
13:8. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. W. L. Watkinson, in a sermon on "Life's Vicissitudes and 
How to Meet Them," said: 

L It would often seem as though things mistook their season, fall- 
ing out with painful untimeliness. Anxieties natural to mature life 
trouble youth, the disabilities of age mar manhood, and the troubles 
that we might reasonably suppose to pass with our noon revive to add 
consternation and bitterness to our closing years. We are confounded 
by a sunken rock in a smooth sea, by a thunderbolt out of a blue sky, 
by frost in the time of roses. Adversity comes in unexpected forms. The 
strong develop a diseased organ; the trusted friend betrays; the staff 
on which we lean pierces the hand; gilt securities change into waste 
paper; the popular candidate is defeated; the rock on which we built 
proves a stone of emptiness; the gate of the churchyard receives the 
desire of our eyes; the brightest of sunshine is suddenly succeeded by 
the deepest of shadows. Adversity comes in unexpected ways. It is 
looked for on the highway, and it crosses the fields. It gets at us by 
crooked pathways of which we could never have dreamed. 

II. To this extent, then, are we the sport of circumstance. We are 
challenged by losses and sorrows that no shrewdness could predict, no 
prudence provide againBt, no intervention break or soften. The almanac 
foretells the order of the seasons, the eclipses of sun and moon, the 
changes of the weather, but furnishes no hint of the vicissitudes which 
agitate our hearts and homes. The uncertainty of life 1b a tremendous 
and dangerous fact, dashing the cup from our lip, quenching in the 
blackness of night brilliant hopes. 

III. The sense of uncertainty puts us altogether into the hand of 
God, and makes us to possess all the treasures of his purpose. And 
whatever the surprise or the shock may be, It will equally avail if we 
accept it faithfully and hopefully. "All things work together for good 
to them that love God;" things "not looked for" amongst the rest. He 
who, "missing of his design, lays hold with ready hand on the unexpected 
event, and turns It to his own account," is the brave, wise servant, "tak- 
ing his revenge on fortune." Heaven often disappoints because It has 
prepared some better thing for ub. Let us, therefore, boldly hall all 
events. The native vessels which sail the White Sea are so built and 
rigged that they can take advantage only of winds blowing from half 
the polntB of the compass. On the other hand, modern ships are so con- 
structed that every wind that blowB sorveB them. Souls ought to pos- 
sess a similarly catholic and elantlc responsiveness. They may if they 
have found their point of polso In the unchanging Christ 

• * • 



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Rev. Dr. Alexander Maclaren opened up the text along the following 
lines: 

I. The unchanging Christ in his relation to our changeful lives. The 
one thing of which anticipation may be sure is, that nothing continues 
in one way. There is only one thing that will enable us to front the else 
intolerable certainty of uncertainty, and that is to fall back upon the 
thought of my text. 

II. Think of the relation between the unchanging Christ and the 
dying helpers. Just as on the face of some great wooded cliff, when the 
leaves drop, the solemn strength of the everlasting rock becomes evident, 
so, when our dear ones fall away, Jesus Christ is revealed, "the same yes- 
terday, and today, and for ever." 

III. We may apply the thought to the relation between the unchang- 
ing Christ and decaying institutions and opinions. His sameness is con- 
sistent with an infinite unfolding of new preciousness and new powers 
as new generations with new questions arise, and the world seeks for 
fresh guidance. 

IV. Look at the words in their application to the relation between 
the unchanging Christ and the eternal love of heaven. It will be the same 
Christ, the Mediator, the Revealer, in heaven as on earth, whom we here 
dimly saw and knew to be the sun of our souls through the clouds and 
mists of earth. 

* * * 

Urging men to face the New Year in dependence upon the unfailing 
Christ, Rev. R. P. Anderson said: Carlyle accompanied his friend to the 
door. It was night, and both men lifted their eyes to the starry heavens. 

"It's a grand sight," said the one. 

"Man, it's just dreadful," replied the old philosopher. 

The same feeling of awe in the presence of immensity made David 
cry, "What is man?" 

Nobody knows. Man himself is overwhelmed and quite unable to 
answer. As he looks out upon infinity and views the whirling worlds 
around him, as he marks the swift and irresistible onrush of time, he 
feels himself like a fly on the rim of a gigantic wheel, forever staggering 
upon the verge of tragedy. 

How different is the sweet and happy attitude of Jesus! He looks, 
not at the smallness of man in comparison with the vastness of creation, 
but at the greatness and the kindness of God. These diamond worlds! 
God made them. This swift-moving stream of years! God rules it. And 
God is my Father! 

Go into the new year with the mind filled with your insignificance, 
and despair will lay its icy hand upon your heart, and you will cry: "It's 
dreadful! What Is the use? What is man?" But face the new year 
with the joyous cry, "My Father," on your lips, and with your eye fixed 
on his pitying love and unfailing tenderness, and your soul will be flooded 
with sunshine and courage and faith. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

Life's Vicissitudes (685). 
Some years ago Oxford, England, celebrated its 1000th anniversary 



THE CHANGING YEARS AND THE UNCHANGING CHRIST. 447 



by presenting, In a great pageant, scenes from its history. An eye wit- 
ness described it in The Continent 

Between the spectators and the river was a green meadow about one 
hundred yards wide. Across the river, connected with the nearer lawn 
by an arched bridge of stone, was a meadow containing thirty or forty 
acres surrounded by a well-simulated mediaeval wall and entered from 
the right by means of a battlemented gateway. Here hundreds of horse- 
men or thousands of footmen might be deployed, while the trees and 
shrubs growing luxuriantly along the river banks formed "wings" to the 
stage of this marvelous amphitheater. 

The history of Oxford begins with the founding of a convent here in 
727 A. D., by Frideswide, daughter of a king of the Mercians, whose 
flight from the amorous Algar and rescue by miraculous intervention gave 
opportunity for the representation of the simple life of England in those 
far away days. 

Then followed in quick succession the crowning of Harold, in 1066, 
the founding of the first school in 1110, the granting of a charter to the 
city in 1160 by Henry II, and the hard fought battle of St. Scholastica's 
Day when "town and gown" had a rough-and-tumble fight which nearly 
cost the city Its municipal freedom. 

One of the most sumptuous scenes was that representing the visit 
of Henry VIII to Oxford, when he conferred with Cardinal Wolsey in 
relation to broadening the culture and enriching the endowments of the 
university. 

For three hours In rapid, kaleidoscopic changes the marvelous his- 
tory was lived over again. Peasants and princes, scholars and boors, 
soldiers and civilians, marched across the stage. The cavalier shook 
out his lovelocks and the roundhead in varied ranks marched to his own 
psalm-slnglng, "Let God arise, let all his enemies be scattered." And 
when at the close all the 3,000 performers massed before the thousands 
of spectators, there came the most impressive moment of the pageant. 

Silently, from the right of the grounds, Father Time, dressed in 
long, black robes, bearing scythe and hourglass high in air, entered. His 
eye swept over the multitudinous and splendid assemblage before him. 
Four buglers standing upon the further bank of the river raised their 
bannered trumpets and there pealed forth the solemn strains of the well 
known hymn, 

"Time like an overflowing stream 
Bears all our lives away," — 
Silently, slowly, Irresistibly, the wise and the fool, the powerful and the 
prisoner, the woman In scarlet and the nun In white, moved up to the 
bridge and across the dividing stream, waved on by Time, while the 
spectators rose and stood In silence with brimming eyes to see how 
"they shall all lie down alike In silence and the worms shall cover them." 
It waa the ninetieth psalm In dramatic form. 

The Changing Years and the Changeless Christ (686). 

I recently turned tho paces of a gazetteer, giving a series of maps 
of Europe, showing It in the different centuries, the 20th, 19th, 15th, 
•tc, back to the &th before ChriBt. The changes were almost Incredible. 



448 



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in the outlines of kingdoms, in the names of cities, provinces, empires, 
mountains and rivers. But the one fact impressed me most was that all 
through the series there was the Eternal City, on the banks of the yellow 
Tiber, unaffected by the vicissitudes of the passing centuries. What 
Rome has been in relation to the geography of Europe the Lord Jesus 
Christ is to the geography of life; the one fixed point amid endless 
evanescence. 

This Fleeting Life (687). 

To the little child, this earth-life seems like eternity. The days 
pass by quickly enough, but the months and the years seem intermin- 
able. But childhood goes by with a rush and a whirl, and is gone before 
we realize it. Gray hairs are scattered upon our heads before we know it. 
Some day you go back to your childhood's home, and, forgetting what 
havoc time has wrought, you expect to see things as you left them years 
ago. And you find that most of those with whom you mingled are laid 
away in some God's Acre, their children are men and women, and their 
children are playing about their knees. Everything -is changed. And 
you almost wish you had not come; you begin to understand what Lyte 
meant when he wrote: 

"Change and decay in all around I see." 

God grant that you may be able to echo his other line. 

"Oh, thou that changest not, abide with me." 

We Change But Christ Does Not (688). 

The pavements we walk upon, the coals in our grates — how many mil- 
lenniums old are they? The pebble you kick aside with your foot — how 
many generations will it outlast? Go into a museum and you will see 
hanging there, little the worse for centuries, battered shields, notched 
swords, and gaping helmets — aye, but what has become of the bright 
eyes that once flashed the light of battle through the bars, what has 
become of the strong hands that once gripped the hilts? "The knights 
are dust," and "their good swords are" not "rust." The material lasts 
after its owner. Seed corn is found in a mummy case. The form be- 
neath the painted lid is brown and hard, and more than half of it gone 
to pungent powder, and the man that once lived has faded utterly; but 
the handful of seed has its mysterious life in it, and when it is sown, 
in due time the green blade pushed above English soil, as it would have 
done under the shadow of the pyramids four thousand years ago — and its 
produce waves in a hundred harvest fields today. The money in your 
purses now, will some of it bear the head of a king that died half a 
century ago? It is bright and useful — where are all the people that in 
turn said they "owned" it? Other men will live in our houses, will 
preach from this pulpit, and sit in these pews when you and I are far 
away. And other June days will come, and the old rose-trees will flower 
round houses where unborn men will then be living, when the present 
possessor is gone to nourish the roots of the roses in the graveyard! 
— Alexander Maclaren, D.D. 



XCI. FAITH'S FRUITAGE. 



"Even so faith, If It hath not works, is dead, being alone." — James 2:17. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
Faith must be translated Into deeds if it is to be a permanent pos- 
session. 

L The highest happiness comes not by what we hear or see or feel 
— it comes by what we do. What shall it profit a man though he hear 
great music and read great books and have his soul stirred by the appeal 
of some prophet of the living God, unless as a result of it all he goes out 
and does something? If you hear and feel and see, happy are ye if ye do, 
and only then. 

II. "The criticism of the next generation upon this," some wise man 
has said, "will be, 'How plainly they saw their problems, how ineffective 
they were in solving them.' " The arraignment is too sweeping, but in 
many quarters the eyes see and the ears hear, but feet and hands are 
not ready to go in the way of achievement. 

III. Jacob Riis shows us "How the Other Half Lives," but thousands 
of the more fortunate decline the huge task of helping to change the 
hard lot of their unhappy fellows. Booker Washington in "Up from 
Slavery" shows us a vision of a backward race ennobled by training, 
but thousands of white men forget to lend a hand. John Spargo utters 
"The Cry of the Children," for there are two millions of them under 
sixteen years of age working at gainful occupations in our own land ac- 
cording to the government census, but the lack of resolute action to 
stop thlB physical, mental and moral depletion of the immature is dis- 
graceful. Lincoln Steffens shows up "The Shame of the Cities" and it 
brings a blush to the face of many a patriot, but when the task of re- 
moving that shame begins to make demands upon the time and strength 
men are giving to their private business, there are many whose love 
for righteousness waxes cold. 

• * » 

The age-long controversy over the relative Importance of faith and 
works Is an instructive Illustration of the pitfalls which beset us In the 
ambiguity of words and the futility of theological discussion without 
careful definition of terms. 

I. That works alone, works without faith and love, are Insufficient 
for salvation, are no ground for acceptance with God, Is perfectly clear. 
But It is equally clear that we cannot be saved without works, that a 
living faith will speedily evidence itself in deeds, that a Christian life 
so devoid of gratitude as not to be marked by labor for the Lord, is 
fatally defective. Although we may enter Into life by faith alone, we 
certainly cannot continue therein without doinK good as we have oppor- 
tunity. Our desire to flee from the wrath to come, If It be genuine and 
really flTed In the soul, will be shown by Its fruits. We are saved by 
grace, through faith, according to our works. 

II. There Is pressing need In almost every Christian llfo of larger 



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activity, more strenuous service, a closer filling out of the days with 
good deeds. It was said of the Master, summing up his career, "He went 
about doing good, for God was with him." Is it said of us? And can 
God be with us on any other basis? "God hath ordained," the apostle 
says, "that we should walk in good works," that we are to be "fruitful in 
every good work," "rich in good works," "zealous of good works," "filled 
with the fruits of righteousness." We are bidden to "trust in the Lord, 
and do good." "provoking one another to love and good works." Scrip- 
ture is very plain and prolific on this head. The Master made it ex- 
ceedingly clear to his followers that whatever else was absent activity 
for God must be present. "What do ye more than others?" was his 
pointed inquiry. To be "workers together with him," to have a love "in 
deed and in truth" instead of in word and tongue simply, to be "ready 
for every good word and work" are the terse characterizations of genu- 
ine disciples. — Prom "The Riches of His Grace." 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Faith Expressing Itself In Service (689). 

Some years ago a woman came to me at the close of the Sunday 
morning service, and said, "O, I would give anything to be in this work 
actively and actually. I would give anything to have some living part 
in the work which is going on here next week in winning men and 
women to Christ, but I do not know what to do." I said, "My sister, are 
you prepared to give the Master the five loaves and two fishes you pos- 
sess?" She said, "I do not know that I have five loaves and two fishes." 
I said, "Have you anything which you have used in any way specially?" 
"No," she did not think she had. "Well," I said, "can you sing?" Her 
reply was "Yes, I sing at home, and I have sung before now in an enter- 
tainment." "Well, now," I said, "will you give the Lord your voice for 
the next ten days?" She said, "I will." I shall never forget that Sun- 
day evening. I asked her to sing, and she sang. She sang the gospel 
message with the voice she had, and that night there came out of that 
meeting into the inquiry room one man. That man said to me after- 
wards that it was the gospel that was sung which reached his heart; and 
from that day to this — that is now eleven or twelve years ago — that 
man has been one of the mightiest workers for God in that city and 
country I have ever known. How was it done? A woman gave the Mas- 
ter what she had. 

Are we willing to give the Master what we have? If so, there 
will be a harvest of glorious surprises in the immediate future. There 
is not a talentless man or woman in the world. — G. Campbell Morgan. 

Unfruitful Faith (690). 

I read the other day in a paper that a Hindoo will pass an examina- 
tion in science; he understands sanitary laws perfectly, but some way 
or other he never seems to understand how to apply them. He will go 
complacently into his own dirty compound and break every sanitary law 
of which he is theoretically master. But you need not go to India to 
find a thing of that kind. You will find many men in this country who 
know the Lord's will, but who never dream of doing it. — Watkinson. 



FAITH'S FRUITAGE. 



451 



We Have to be "Thrust Forth" (691). 
I have come to believe this to be almost invariably true, that seldom 
Is anything good proposed to us but we have something to object to it 
at first. This seems to be the reason for the expression used by our 
Lord, "Thrust forth laborers." We are all unwilling to go. The truth 
is, we are all a little lazy. We need to be "thrust forth." — Andrew 
Bonar. 

The Evidence of Christianity (692). 

The fruits of the Spirit are the only evidence of a man's being a 
true Christian. Where there is no fruit there is no vital union to Christ. 
A person may be a Christian in name and have a nominal union to 
Christ, but there will be no fruit. Fruit must be seen in holiness of life 
and character. He that is destitute of these is "dead while he liveth." 
— James M. Hoadley, D.D. 

How Faith Shines (693). 

In the Greek Church in Jerusalem they have a ceremony by which 
they celebrate the coming of the divine influence to earth, which, while 
to be utterly condemned because of the ecclesiastical hocus pocus in- 
volved, possesses value as a startling illustration of an important truth. 
While the priests, in full canonicals, are ministering at the altar, and the 
crowd 1b waiting with bated breath and holding unlighted torches, sud- 
denly, from some crypt beneath the altar a blazing torch is stretched 
forth, and, in a moment, all is uproar. Men struggle for the privilege of 
lighting their torches at this mysterious fire — supposedly from heaven. 
Ab soon as they are lighted the bearers rush forth into the streets where 
long lines of other torch-bearers stand waiting to kindle their torches 
from those lighted at the sacred fire, as the runners speed along. And 
after a little, men with torches scattered all over the city, and additional 
torches are constantly lighted by those they bear. 

It is all rankest superstition, of course. But it is also a spectacular 
setting forth, by striking illustration, of what consecrated personality 
may be made to mean. 

The Missing Stone (694). 

A man dreamed that when he died he was taken by the angels to a 
beautiful temple. After admiring It for a time, he discovered that one 
Btone was missing. All finished but Just one little stone; that was left out. 
He aaid to the angel, "What is this stone left out for?" The angel re- 
piled, "That was left out for you, but you were waiting to do great 
thlngB, and so this was never finished." He was startled and awoke, 
and resolved that he would become a faithful worker for God In little 
things. — Moody. 

Living Our Belief (695). The Chinese whose quaint confession of 
faith, was, "I am reading the Bible now and behaving It," had a better 
conception of what Ih Involved In being a Christian than many professed 
believers of long standing. — Outlook. 

Falth'B Melody and Llfe't Ta»k (696). 
Standing on the busy corner of Boylston and Arlington streets, In 
Boston, Is a church made famous by the ministry of great men. Its 



s 



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spire is characteristic of the architecture of the last century, and ele- 
vates the clock that it bears far above the street. This clock, though 
out of range of the convenient glance of crowds, fulfills its purpose nobly. 
Each hour it reminds hurrying men of the passing time, not with monot- 
onous beats alone, but by chiming a brief strain out of some song made 
sacred to the heart of the multitude by the grace of God. What an ex- 
alted idea the mechanic has thus embodied in the construction of this 
clock! What incalculable blessing would result if we should as implic- 
itly respond to the plans of the Infinite Designer and combine with life's 
dull tasks a strain of Christian melody reminding men of the true and 
unfailing source of the sweetest harmonies. — Western Christian Advo- 
cate. 

Christian Activity (697). 
I do not see how Christianity is ever to carry the day, unless the 
great bulk of our church membership becomes also a ministry. By this 
I mean, not merely the passive ministry of character, though that is 
much, but active, personal concern and direct personal service of some 
sort, aiming to make others happier, wiser and better; every believer 
a witness, every new recruit himself a recruiter. — Roswell D. Hitchcock. 

The Day Will Show (698). 
The test of character for us lies not in the things that we hear, but 
in the things that we do. A servant in Scotland went to a gospel meet- 
ing, where she professed to have received great help. When she got 
home she said to her mistress, "Oh, I have got such a blessing at the 
meeting." "Ah, well," was the cautious reply of her mistress, "we shall 
see in the morning, Lizzie, whether it is or no." The morning's work 
would give token of the reality of the blessing. We need a religion that 
will do more than arouse emotions. We want one that will produce 
holy conduct— The Christian Advocate. 



XCII. "JOY UNSPEAKABLE." 

"Whom having not seen, ye love; In whom, though now yo see him not, 
yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."— 
1 Peter 1:8. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

I. Happiness Is inward not outward. It depends upon what we 
know, not upon what we have. 

II. Happiness is an incident and a result, not an aim; it can never 
be had by direct seeking, but by setting our faces toward the things 
from which it flows. 

III. Happiness is not solitary but social; It can be had only by 
those who share it 

IV. The Divine Will is the law of life; we find our happiness in sur- 
render and obedience. The love of Christ in the heart is the spring of 
Joy in the life. — Selected. 

* * * 

Rev. Alfred L. Hall-Guest said on this subject of rejoicing in Chri6t: 

I. Do not rejoice In your circumstances. They fluctuate. Today 
you have much; tomorrow you may have leBS. If the source of your Joy 
lies in these fluctuating conditions it is very evident that you will have 
many days of gloom and fret. And yet there are thousands of men and 
women who do this very thing. They are the poor comforters for others 
of their ilk. They are unjust to their own better natures, and only 
too true is the fact that they dishonor God by allowing the flitting birds 
of circumstances to unmake their Joys. 

II. Do not rejoice In your environment. It, too, will change. We can 
say often that our lines have fallen in pleasant places, but the neigh- 
borhood changes, a closer acquaintance shows many ugly features in 
the environment, and what appeared as lovely and Joy-giving becomes a 
serious obstacle to Joy. 

III. Do not rejoice in friendships. I explain, all friendships are not 
true. In your eagerness to have friends, perhaps you are careless in 
your choice and overly sanguine of the Joy to be had in the new fellow- 
ship. There are real friends, and in them one can truly rejoice, but they 
do not carry their real selves as walking advertisers do their signs. 
People are so disappointing. I suppose you have discovered that. A 
few months following will make threadbare many friendships. They are 
like some grades of carpet. There are ingrain and Brussels and Ax- 
minster and Wlltonllke friendships, and also those of the genuine Turk- 
ish Rug variety, not of a perfect design or weaving, but nevertheless 
genuine In workmanship; costly because rare. 

IV. But consider tho positive side. Rejoice In Him whom though 
not having seen, ye love. 

* • » 

A Program for ■ Joyful Life. 
The following noble schedulo Is by Rev. Charles M. Sheldon: 



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I. I will try to do God's will every day. 

II. I will try to see the good in the world and in my neighbor. 

III. I will not worry over matters I cannot help and over those I 
can help I do not need to worry. 

IV. I will keep my mind and heart in touch with the great things 
of the universe. 

V. I will learn to enjoy the free gifts of- God to men, like nature 
and the facts of physical powers. 

VI. I will learn to prize all my human friendships. 

VII. I will help some one to a happier life every day. 

VIII. I will magnify my place in the kingdom of God. 

IX. I will enjoy the friendship of Christ as my Redeemer and 
Brother. 

"Hope thou in God." 
"Rejoice in the Lord always." 
* * * 

Rev. Frederick W. Lynch, commenting on this theme in The Congre- 
gationalist, emphasizes these points: 

I. The Happy Christian. The note of joy runs through the Epistles 
of Paul and Peter as a theme of music through a symphony. The out- 
standing characteristic of the early Christians was the new joy that pos- 
sessed them. Their meetings, even when in secret caves and attics, 
were love-feasts and times of praise. The fragments of the earliest 
hymns are all joy-songs. The chapter of Peter on which our lesson is 
based is a hymn of joy and gives the grounds of the Christian's joy. A 
Christian should always be happy, because he had been raised from the 
dead to the promise of an inheritance incorruptible, sure and enduring 
forever. He should be happy because, whatever trials he may have to 
endure, he is sustained and kept inviolate by the power of God. He 
should be happy because God deemed him of enough worth to redeem 
him by the life of his own Son, and ordered all the processes of the 
universe to make him holy. The secret of joy is the consciousness of 
God. 

II. The Winning Power of Joy. It was the joyousness of the best 
Christians that attracted the non-Christian world. There is ample testi- 
mony to this in the beginnings of Christianity in Rome. The Roman 
was stoical, not ebullient in his nature. He suffered nobly often, and 
endured with a grim patience, but his heart never bubbled over with the 
Joy of an unfettered soul, with the ecstasy of one who saw the heavens 
opening in the end. But the first manifestation of conversion which he 
witnessed in his neighbor was a radiant joyousness, a buoyant greeting 
of life, a triumphant not stoic endurance of all ill. This sunniness, this 
certitude that all things worked together for good won him to the new 
faith. It is proverbial that the happy countenance of the Salvation Army 
lassie has led thousands to inquire as to its source. (There is a beautiful 
presentation of this winning power of joy in the beginnings of the church 
in Tolstoi's great story, "Work While You Have the Light.") 

III. Why Not Be Cheerful? Let us confess that it is hard sometimes. 
Let us even confess that sometimes our friend from whom cheerfulness 
sticks out at all times like porcupine quills irritates us a little, and 



"JOY UNSPEAKABLE." 



455 



makes us remember the words of that dear old pessimist of Eccleslastes, 
that there is a time to weep as well as a time to laugh, a time to mourn 
as well as a time to dance. As a pastor I have sometimes mistrusted 
the man who too glibly told me that his wife's death was the will of 
God, and kept cheerful beyond seemliness. I looked for a speedy sec- 
ond marriage and generally saw it. And yet, who in this world has reason 
for cheerfulness if not the Christian? Can he not hourly say in Whit- 
tier'B beautiful words: 

"I know not where his islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air; 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond his love and care." 
The quest of the Christian should not be first for cheerfulness. Books 
on "Don't Worry" will not help him much. Seek first God — a deep con- 
sciousness of God — then all else will follow. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Joy. A Word Study (699). 

Tracing the word Joy back through modern languages to its deriva- 
tion, we find it in French, Spanish, Italian and, finally, in the Latin 
tongue. It seems to be best described by its Spanish synonym of a jewel. 
If one looks into the heart of the ruby, the depths of the emerald, or 
the shimmer of the pearl; if one turns a diamond back and forth in the 
sun, one catches something of the singular charm of imprisoned light. 

Joy has this flash of the sunbeam on our way. A child's Joy Is 
spontaneous; the child has no care about daily bread, raiment or shelter. 
The child plays without fear for tomorrow. It was not to little children 
that our Lord said: "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," nor 
are children, except when they have been despoiled of their heritage 
by the iron hand of greed and the weight of premature labor, ever afraid 
of what the morrow will bring. 

Joy In work is the condition which the Jewel might suggest, the 
Jewel Itself being in part the product of skill and thoughtful toil. Let ub 
ask ourselves whether we are living In that state of contentment and 
acquiesence with the Divine Will which enables us to be contaantly 
Joyful and, so to speak, entitles us to wear the jewel of joy as a daily 
ornamenL — Selected. 

True Joy (700). 

Much that we call gladness is not gladness at all. It Is too super- 
ficial to be worthy the name. The old Roman philosopher, Seneca, had 
the right of it when he Bald, "True Joy is a serene and Bober motion; 
and they are miserably out that take laughing for rejoicing; the seat 
of It 1b within." In harmony with this Is the sentiment of Robert Burns, 
which I remember seeing Inscribed upon the pedestal of his monument 
In the public square of Dumfries, Scotland: 

"The heart's aye the part aye 
That makes us rlcht or wrang." 

For true happlnenB comes from a deep well, and that well must be 
a well of righteousness, of rlsht relations with God nnd mnn. All other 
happiness Is transient and superficial.— Rev. John Y. Ewart, D.D. 



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Be of Good Cheer (701). 
On the eve of his crucifixion, when the clouds were black and threat- 
ening, Jesus comforted his disciples with those ever-memorable words: 
"Let not your heart be troubled. In the world ye shall have tribulation; 
but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." And Paul, in prison 
awaiting death, cheered his fellow Christians on to a life of heroic en- 
durance by the inspiring exhortation: "Rejoice, evermore, and again I 
say unto you, Rejoice." Christianity is a religion of hope. When we 
enter upon the new life we are "begotten again into a lively (living) hope 
by the resurrection of Christ from the dead." "Hope," says one, "gives 
sanity and good health; it doubles the value of food and sleep, lightens 
every care and gives the heart courage for all its tasks." — Selected. 

Joy Finds a Home (702). 
Not long ago there was a touching story in one of the Chicago daily 
papers about a little boy who was without any home. His name was Joy. 
He had lost both his parents, and then his guardian had died, so that at 
five years old he was left homeless for the second time. He had no living 
relatives. 

Immediately telephone calls, telegrams and personal inquiries poured 
in on the newspaper. Hundreds of homes were open to Joy; not in char- 
ity, but because those who asked for him really wanted to make him their 
son. The editors of the newspaper were deeply touched by the eager, 
spontaneous cry that came to them — the call of the childless homes. 

Some of the people who wanted to adopt Joy were rich; some were 
well-to-do; others were in moderate circumstances, and some were poor. 
The paper made a careful investigation, and selected a few of the most 
suitable families. From among these it asked Joy to choose his home. 

Joy started out with a representative of the newspaper, and visited 
one home after another. For two days the little fellow was undecided. 
The whole city became eager to know what his choice would be, and the 
suspense of the childless families who hoped for him was touching. On 
the third day Joy visited a home he had not previously seen. It was a 
home of a very modest sort — comfortable enough, but with no sign of 
wealth, and no offer of luxury. The woman came down the hall as the 
little boy came in at the front door. She spoke one word: "Joy!" In- 
stantly the little fellow ran to her, and as she caught him up, he threw 
his arms about her neck. 

Joy had found a mother, and the woman's hungry heart had found a 
son. And all the city who had watched the drama said how fortunate was 
this woman, who had no great wealth to offer, and who had yet won the 
little fellow's heart. 

But it was not luck or childish caprice that settled the question. The 
woman had loved children all her life, and had given her time and 
thought and such means as she had to making them happy and good. 
She had loved children and worked for them, and the sign of it was upon 
her face and in her voice. The little boy knew as soon as he saw her 
that she was the best mother of them all for him. 

In that way, so indirectly that it often seems accidental, we get our 
richest compensation for love and service and right living. Upon what 
we have been depends what we are to get. 



JOY UNSPEAKABLE 



457 



The Christian's Joy Unspeakable (703). 

God made us to be happy. Many of us who would not range ourselves 
with the hermit or the Puritan are afraid of good things. If God places a 
cup in our hand, brimming with happiness, we put it to our lips with a 
trembling grasp, and dread lest we may be having too much happiness. 
We never expect to have a day of perfect pleasure; we think it would be 
too good to hope for; there will always be some freckle in the lily, some 
thorn In the rose, some cloud in the sky. When we take our joys, it Is 
with foreboding. We tread the happy path with fear. Or, if we let our- 
selves go, and have one long, blessed day; if we let ourselves go into a 
friendship, and drink and drink again; if we allow ourselves to delight in 
some avocation, accomplishment or interest, we always fear that there 
will be a rebate; and that after some days or weeks have passed, God, who 
can not trust us with too much joy, will see to it that our life is plunged 
in gloom and sorrow to make an equivalent. 

If there be a burst of sunshine, we go about the world, saying: "You 
may depend upon It, we shall have to pay for this." This spirit Is per- 
petually casting a shadow over our happiest days. The mother takes the 
little child in a perfect ecstasy to her bosom, but as she looks upon its 
face, Bhe says to herself: "I must not be too happy, for fear God will take 
him away." The young man who recognizes his twin soul says to him- 
self: "I must not be too happy, for such happiness as thiB can not last." 
This Is the way so many of us go through life — afraid to drink the cups 
of Joy which are ready In our hand. 

There Is another phase of this same experience — we shut ourselves 
up with our sorrow. And yet the darkest day that ever came had some alle- 
viation; the saddest hour that ever struck had something in it to make 
life possible; but too often we wrap the mantle of grief around our per- 
son, and, although the child's hand reaches out its flowers, although the 
sky sends down a glint of smiling sunshine, although there is wafted to 
us some beautiful burst of music, which should lift us upon its wing, we 
shut ourselves up In our sorrow and say: "No, we are too down and dull 
today to be able to entertain and accept joy." How often the good love of 
God, though all around our path. Is sent away abashed, disappointed and 
thwarted. Thus all our life is needlessly shadowed by constant prohibi- 
tion.— Rev. F. B. Meyer. 

In Whom Believing Ye Rejoice (704). 

Romanes, the gifted scientist, who traveled into Infidelity and then 
back again, found, as the result of his experience, that "the nature of 
man without God Is thoroughly miserable. " It Is the business of religion 
to bring the two together.— Rev. J. Brlerly. 

Christian Joy (705). 
Christian Joy 1b one of the fruits of the Spirit. It Is not made to order. 
It Is not an automatic arrangement of Krace. It Is a divine gift, divinely 
born and divinely Imparted, divinely nourished and divinely perpetuated. 
It Is not dependent on external conditions, but rather upon Internal pos- 
sessions — possessions of grace, divine favor, divine peace, divine assur- 
ance, uninterrupted fellowship with God. abiding companionship with 



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Jesus Christ, and the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Joy is more than mere 
happiness. Happiness fluctuates, is influenced by circumstances, by exter- 
nal conditions, but genuine Christian joy, while it produces exuberance, is, 
nevertheless, an abiding grace, increasing under trials rather than dimin- 
ishing, for it abounds wherever Christ abounds. Paul and Silas knew 
what it meant and did for them in the Philippian jail, Daniel in the lions' 
den, Luther in the Wartburg, Bunyan in Bedford jail, Christ in the Garden 
and upon Calvary, for "He endured the cross and despised the shame" 
because of "the joy that was set before him." The joy of being found in 
the path of duty, the joy of anticipated triumph, the joy of assurance of 
the effectiveness of his atoning death and victorious resurrection, the joy 
of satisfied justice, the joy of routing sin, and the joy of populating 
heaven with souls washed in his blood, from among all nations, kindreds 
and tongues. 

The things which Jesus had spoken of to his disciples should be the 
productive source of their joy. The word of pardon proceeding from his 
lips and lodging in our hearts produces joy. What a joy to be redeemed 
from sin, what a joy to be adopted into the family of God. What a joy to 
be in harmony with God, to be an heir of God and a joint heir with Jesus 
Christ. What a joy to have one's interests linked with the interests of 
God. What a joy to abide in Christ and have his words abide in us! 
All "these things" produce a joy unspeakable and full of glory. — Selected. 



XCIII. THE CURE FOR CARE. 



"Casting all your care on him; for he careth for you." — 1 Peter 5:7. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

On this text Rev. F. B. Meyer said: 

L The Greek verb indicates not that we must keep doing it, hut 
do it once for all. 

Who doe3 not know what it is to awake in the morning with a sense 
of heaviness End depression, and, before one is well aroused, to be con- 
scious of a voice whispering a long tale of burdens to be carried, and diffi- 
culties to be met, as the hours pass on! 

"Ah," says the voice, "a miserable day will this be." 

"How so?" we inquire, fearfully. 

"Remember, there is that creditor to meet, that skein to disentangle, 
that irritation to soothe, those violent tempers to confront. It is no use 
praying, better linger longer where you are, and drag through the day as 
you may. You are like a victim in the tumbril going to be guillotined." 

And too often we have yielded to the suggestion. If we have prayed, 
it has been in a kind of hopeless way, asking God to help, but not daring 
to think he would. There has been no assurance, no confidence, no calm 
within, no tranquillity without. Alas for some! They always spend their 
lives thus. One long, weary monotone of anxiety — struggling against 
winds and waves, instead of walking over the crests of the billows; tread- 
ing a difficult, stony pass, instead of being borne along in one of the 
twenty thousand chariots of God. 

How infinitely better to cast our care upon the strong, broad shoulders 
of Christ! Treat cares as you treat sins. Hand them over to Jesus one 
by one as they occur. Commit them to him. Roll them upon him. Make 
them his. By an act of faith look to him, saying, "Lord, Thou hast taken 
my sins; take my cares: I lay them upon thee, and trust thee to do for me 
all, and more than all, I need. I will trust, and not be afraid." As George 
Herbert says so quaintly in his sonnet. Put care into Christ's bag. There 
is no surer path to rest than to pass on to Jesus all the anxieties of life, 
believing that he takes what we give at the moment of our giving it; that 
It instantly becomes a matter of honor with him to do his best for us: 
and surely It is a sacrilege to take back any gift which we have put into 
his hands. 

II. Do not be satisfied with rolling yourself on God, roll your burden 
alBO. He who can carry the one can carry the other. When a tiny boy, 
trying to help his father move his books, fell on the staircase beneath the 
weight of a heavy volume, his father ran to his aid and caught up in his 
arms boy and burden both, and carried them In his arms to his room. 
And will God deal worse with us? He cannot fall or forsake. He can 
smite rocks, and op*>n soaB, and unlock the treasuries of the air, and 
ransack the stores of the earth. Birds will brln« meat, and fish coins, If 
he bid them. He takes up the Isles as a very little thing— how easily. 



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then, your heaviest load: while there is nothing so trivial but that you 
may make it a matter of prayer and faith. 

III. The reasonableness of this method of life. "For he careth for 
you." Of course, if we persist in acting only for ourselves, we must do 
the best we can for ourselves; but if we can hand over all matters to God, 
we shall find that he will do infinitely better for us than we had dared to 
hope. Such is God's love to us that he always goes far beyond our farth- 
est anticipations. "Exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." 

If the father is providing for tomorrow's needs, why should his little 
boy leave his play, and lean pensively against the wall, wondering what 
had better be done? If the pilot has come on board, why should the 
captain also pace the deck with weary foot? If some wise, strong friend, 
thoroughly competent, has undertaken to adjust some difficult piece of 
perplexity for me, and if I have perfect confidence in him, and he assures 
me that he is well able to accomplish it, why should I interfere? 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. George D. Mott's comment on this theme was: Whatever 
betide, we must not lose confidence in God. When Abraham departed 
from the home where he expected to spend his old age, and turned his 
face toward the unknown scenes of Canaan, God said, "Fear not, I am thy 
shield," and this same "fear not," like a soothing refrain, purls to the end 
of Holy Writ. 

The world tries to cast away care. Hence the endeavor to drown it 
in pleasures, to neutralize it by absorption in business, to amuse it with 
the aims of ambition. But care thus cast away, often returns like a 
boomerang. Scripture tells us, "Cast thy burden on the Lord, he shall 
sustain thee." The care is a care. Often it is a painful reality. We must 
have prudent thought about temporal affairs, and about our families. 
Scripture has no encouragement for lazy people, but it abounds in conso- 
lation for the toiling children of men. Now the true course is, not to cast 
away that care, but to consign it to God, who is as deeply interested in 
the objects of our care as we are; whose wisdom will direct what is best 
for them, and whose power can secure the accomplishment. Cares tend 
to crossness. Let us sweeten each cup of bitterness by some promise of 
our heavenly Father. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage said: This is a tired world! Multitudes 
tired of body or tired of mind or tired of soul! Every one has a burden 
to carry, if not on one shoulder, then on the other. In the far East water 
is so scarce that if a man owns a well he is rich; and battles have been 
fought for the possession of a well of water. But every man owns a well, 
a deep well, — a well of tears. Chemists have tried to analyze a tear, and 
they say it is made of so much of this and so much of that, but they miss 
important Ingredients. A tear is agony in solution. But by divine power 
it may be crystallized into spiritual wealth, and all burdens may be lifted. 
God is the rest of the soul that comes to him. He rests us by removing 
the weight of our sin, and by solacing our griefs with the thought that he 
knows what is best for his children. A wheat-sheaf cried out to 
the farmer, "Why do you smite me with that flail? What have I done 
that you should so cruelly pound me?" But when the straw had been 



THE CURE FOR CARE 



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raked off the wheat and put in the mow, and the wheat had been win- 
nowed by the mill and had been piled in rich and beautiful gold on either 
side the barn floor, then the straw looked down from the mow and saw 
the reason why the farmer had flailed the wheat-sheaf. 

* * * 

Rev. Dr. F. Bottome said: In recently crossing the Atlantic a group 
of passengers after a violent storm huddled together on their steamer- 
chairs condoling with each other on their late fearful experiences, when 
a lady of the company addressed the captain, who had drawn near, and 
asked, "Captain, didn't you think we were going to the bottom?" Assum- 
ing an air of offended dignity, the master of the ship replied, "Madam, 
when I signed the ship's papers in the company's office, I agreed to carry 
this steamer across the Atlantic Ocean from Liverpool to New York. The 
bottom is not on my chart." 

Now when Christ entered that ship in Galilee with his disciples his 
purpose was to cross the lake. The bottom was not on his chart. But he 
answered their fears and bade the wind and storm cease; and there was 
a great calm. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
The Fragrance of Faith (706). 

Campbell Morgan says that he once went into the home of a gentle- 
man who was entertaining him, and in one room he always detected the 
fragrance of roses, and he said to his host one day, "I wish you would 
tell me how it is that I never come into this room without seeming to 
detect the fragrance of roses." 

The gentleman smiled and said: "Ten years ago I was In the Holy 
Land, and while there I bought a small phial of attar of roses. It was 
w rapped in cotton wool, and as I was standing here unpacking It, suddenly 
I broke the bottle. I took the whole thing up, cotton, wool and all, and put 
It Into this vase." There stood a beautiful vase, and he lifted the lid, and 
the fragrance of roses tilled the room. That fragrance had permeated the 
clay of the vase, and It was impossible to enter the room without con- 
sciousness of It. My friends. If Christ be In us, the fragrance of the Rose 
of Sharon will pervade and permeate our whole life. All that kind of fear 
that hath torment will disappear, and the love which beautifies and 
glorifies human living shall possess us, and make us a comfort and a 
blessing to all whose lives touch our own. — L. A. Banks. 

Rest in Christ (707). 
Robertson, of Brighton, once wrote to his brother: "For many years 
I have been seeking God. But I have Just been awakened to the fact that 
all these years God has been Beeklng me." That Is a precious hymn that 
beglnB "There's a wldeness in God'B mercy like the wideness of the Bea." 
But God's mercy Is wider than the Bea. It Ib the wldeness of tho universe. 
And It Is Christ who comes to exprexfl It. Therefore accept Christ. Read 
about him. Think about him. RfHt In him. Leave everything that con- 
cerns yourself with him. Do not look any longer at yourself. Look at 
Christ. Let yourself alone. Let your "feellngB" and your fears go. Do 
not trouble yourself about yourself. Spend the rest of your days In sub- 



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mitting to Christ and you will soon be able to tell people, for their great 
good, what Christ can do for a soul that rests in him. — Bishop Vincent. 

"The Lord Bore It" (708). 

"Oh, Hannah, I do not see how you could bear so much sorrow!" "I 
did not bear it," was the quick reply, "the Lord bore it for me." "Yes," 
said the visitor, "that is the right way. You must take your troubles to 
the Lord." "Yes," replied Hannah, "but we must do more than that. We 
must leave them there. Most people," she continued, "take their burdens 
to him, but they bring them away with them again, and are just as wor- 
ried and unhappy as ever. But I take mine and leave them with him, 
and come away and forget them. And if the worry comes back, I take it 
to him again. I do this over and over, until at last I just forget that I 
have any worries and am at perfect rest." — Hannah Whitall Smith. 

The Curse of Care (709). 

Worry breaks down our health and ill-health reacts upon the mental 
condition, and we worry more and more until we are unfitted for the en- 
joyment of life's pleasures, the meeting of its responsibilities, and the 
bearing of its burdens. Worry is also injurious to the spiritual life. Of- 
tentimes the Word of God is choked out of our hearts by the cares of this 
life. Oftentimes our hearts are so full of worries about the things of this 
life that we have no time to think about the things of the life which is to 
come. The soul and body are intimately connected and the care and 
worry which produce ill-health in the body produce also disease in the 
soul. Languor of body produces languor of spirit, and physical dyspepsia 
results in spiritual discouragement, and a torpid liver is often respon- 
sible for doubts about the salvation of the soul. Worry is a sin against 
our spiritual life, because it substitutes doubt for faith, slothfulness for 
fervor in spirit, self-reliance for trust in God, conscience for Christ, and 
reliance upon our own wisdom for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. — The 
Presbyterian. 

"Where anxiety begins faith ends." — Miller. 

Let Him Bear You (710). 

An officer who was engaged in the siege of Sebastopol tells the follow- 
ing incident: "My general wishing to send some orders to one of the 
regiments, I had to pass across an open space exposed to the full fire of 
the batteries. I got across in safety, and as I was coming back I saw a 
little drummer boy lying wounded, who, if he were left where he waB 
lying, would almost to a certainty be killed. I went to him, and told him 
I was going to carry him back with me. He objected, and declared that 
I could not carry him. As I carried him, he was most restless, declaring 
he was too heavy, and tried constantly to put one foot to the ground to 
help us along,' as he said. All the time he kept on saying, 'I am sure I 
am too heavy for you, sir. Please let me try and walk myself.' At last 
I was obliged to put him down for a minute under the shelter of a large 
monument, and tell him that he must keep quiet while I carried him, or 
he might sacrifice both our lives. With very great difficulty, on starting 
again, I got him to lie still in my arms, and was able to carry him to a 



THE CURE FOR CARE 



463 



safe shelter. Next morning I went to the hospital to see how he was, and I 
then reminded him how difficult he had made it for me to help him, owing 
to his belief that, crippled though he was from his wound, he could yet do 
better for himself than by trusting entirely to me. 'Ah!' said he, looking 
up in my face with a smile, 'but I did not know, sir, as you was so 
strong!'" How often does the sinner hinder the Saviour's interposition 
through trying to help by his own work? Have we yet realized that he is 
"so strong?" — Sabbath Reading. 

How Care Breeds (710a) 

How care breeds about ourselves. We ask, "Have we decided this or 
that in the wisest way ? If we could only get back to where the decision 
was forced on us!" But we cannot 1 have stood by the great blast fur- 
nace, and have seen the molten iron break forth, as fluid, as water, so 
that it could be turned and shaped in any way; but in a moment it was 
fixed. So with our choices; they were for a moment in our power; now 
they are unchangeable. We cannot go back. 

Here care breeds as to our future. Will this choice which I have 
made issue in what is best for me and for those whom I love? 

Thus we see all about us the shapes of«various cares. 

When we have these cares upon us, let us remember what Peter says 
(1 Peter v. 7): "Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you." 
The word rendered "care" in the first clause means something which di- 
vides you, cuts you in twain, distracts you, which cuts your peace and joy 
in pieces. When I am confronted with cares, in the place where the ways 
meet, I become distracted. My life, instead of being strong and triumpn- 
ant, becomes weak and broken. — Wayland Hoyt, D.D. 

Trust (710b) 

Reside my baby's crib at night, I lay upon my bed; 

My little one could hear the storm, and feared the dark, she said, 

The night was dark, the clouds were low, the storm's voice sounded wild. 

So baby heart craved some one near, lest danger meet the child. 

Yet not content, my baby girl, for me Just near to linger. 

Her tiny hand stole out the bed and clasped around my finger. 

I could not chide, refuse her plaint, be hardened to her tears; 

She understood no reasons why, so I must Boothe her fears. 

I, too, a child about to rest, my play and cares aside, 
Can aHk no dearer, sweeter boon than near Thee to abide. 
The night Is dark, the clouds are low, the storm to me Is wild, 
Kor I, too, know not reason why, since I am but Thy child. 
My life. O Father, In Thy hand, may little bo or much; 
But I. Thy child, shall be content. If I may feel Thy touch. 
Thou'll not withhold Thy care by night, by day Thy help divine; 
And dark or cloud or storm are naught — my hand shall rest In Thine. 

— A. J. Chapman. 



XCIV. THE LURE OF THE WORLD. 



"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man 
love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." — 1 John 2:15. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Preaching on the marks of the worldling, Archdeacon Sinclair, D.D., of 
London, lists the following four: 

L The self-denial of the cross is abhorrent to them. The cross of 
Christ checks us in every form of selfishness, not merely in grosser evils. 
We are to live, not for ourselves, but for others. We are to desire the 
progress and advancement of others rather than our own. Such ideas 
the man of the world can not understand at all. He lives for the aggran- 
dizement and pleasure of himself and his family, and his expenses are 
only limited by his income. It is this kind of unchecked self-gratification 
and scorn of self-denial that makes even a well-balanced civilization diffi- 
cult, and excites the toiling and indigent masses. It Is hard for the gen- 
uine children of God, in the midst of this atmosphere of selfishness, to 
maintain the true ideal of self-denial in all things. 

II. The next point Is that these men become devotees of their appe- 
tites, passions and sensuality in general. The daily dinner-table looms 
large in their lives. Their God is their belly. They are always on the 
lookout for good things and the varied delights of self-indulgence. 

The thirst for pleasurable sensations colors the whole day; they care 
nothing for aspiration, high thoughts, the love of man, a noble enterprise; 
all they desire is to have a good time. Even the affectionate feelings are 
perverted and dishonored by sensuality. 

DL They are proud of this luxurious and selfish spirit, and disdain- 
ful of others who do not share it. "Their glory is In their shame." How 
well Paul knew the world! Who does not recollect occasions when the 
timid suggestions of Christian principle have been met with the well-bred 
stare or the polite laugh of better-Informed contempt? Filled with self- 
satisfaction, confident that they know the ways of the world, and per- 
fectly content with Its cold, heartless, and unprincipled maxims, they are 
incapable of learning. The revelation of God in Christ, which is of trans- 
cendent importance for the true happiness of mankind, thpy treat with 
Indulgent scorn as mere children's babble. Their selfishness is their pride, 
their freedom from scruple Is their satisfaction, and their hardness of 
heart is their Bubject for dally congratulation. And there is great danger, 
when we are In the midst of such an atmosphere, of our thinking of the 
truths and principles revealed by our Lord as old-fashioned, visionary and 
unnecessary. 

IV. They pay all their attention to earthly matters. Their whole 
sympathies aro absorbed by sHf-lnterest, the dally pleasures of life, the 
round of amusements which prevent tedium and expel dullness, the en- 
joyment of the display of taste and treasure, the sense of having at com- 
mand everything that luxury can supply. 



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Rev. S. E. Wishard, D.D., cited the following four characteristics of 
the spirit of worldliness : 

I. A declining love is only partially controlling. It does not hold the 
mastery over the soul and the life. Its admonitions are feeble. Love 
was once compelling, by a sweet and blessed force, to which it was a 
joy to yield; but as its decline is manifested it loses its grip on the life, 
and the victim of this decay halts before duty, and turns hesitatingly from 
what would have been a supreme delight when a first love was enthroned. 
The victim of this moral paralysis does not mean to turn entirely away 
from God, but consents to follow him afar off, as Peter did, walking in the 
easy way, but dodging the severer tests. 

II. It is compromising, willing to "Become all things to all men," but 
from a different motive power than that which controlled the apostle, and 
with a different purpose. It is calculating, troubled with interrogation 
points, questioning how the reputation of self is to be effected if one 
should stand for God in every emergency. It is timid, sees a lion in the 
way, is in great fear where there is nothing to fear, has forgotten that 
"There is nothing hard for the Lord." It has come to the place where the 
natural man dominates the spiritual man. "When he would do good, evil 
is present" with him, to enslave, to fetter all the aspirations of his better 
self. 

III. It divides the life and tempers it down to a respectable morality. 
Its victim is "of all men the most miserable." His conscience has once 
been enlightened. He has once tasted the liberty wherewith God makes 
free, has known the joy of full conversion, has walked in the way that was 
made plain for him. But having lost his first love "the fine gold has be- 
come dim," the rough places are no longer smooth, the yoke is no longer 
easy, nor the burden light. He has ceased to "run in the way of God's 
commandments," but limps and mopes. 

IV. It dreads the discovery and enforcement of obligation, is rest- 
less under the pressure of truth, finds it convenient to forsake the place 
where the gospel is offered to the people. He has forgotten the admoni- 
tion, "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together," or at least has 
forgotten the hold it once had on him. Even memory grows dim as love 
decays. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Look Up, Not Down (711). 

Guides in the Alps tell us that, as they are journeying up over the 
ice along some narrow pathway that girdles a mountain precipice, they 
sometimes hear the sounds of objects falling into the abyss below, or see 
their shadows moving downward over the snows on the opposite sides of 
the valley. Then they say that they dare not look at the falling object nor 
at its shadow. There is danger, if they do so, that their bodies may fol- 
low the direction of their eyes, — that they may lean over too far, may lose 
their balance, and be dashed to pieces in the depths below. Their only 
safety comes from keeping their gaze fixed steadily on the pathway before 
them which leads them upward and onward. Our only safety in the jour- 
ney of life is in learning not to direct our attention to the things — not to 
mind — the things that lead us to look downward, but to keep our eyes 



THE LURE OF THE WORLD 



4C7 



fixed steadily on that which leads us upward and onward. — Prof. George 
Lansing Raymond. 

Do Not Let the Material Eclipse the Spiritual (712). 

Dr. Watkinson quotes the Oriental proverb which says, "The lotus- 
flowers are not the Nile." The lotus-flowers are very beautiful as they 
fringe the river, as they shine on its bosom, but they are not the river; 
they are not the source of the bread men eat; they satisfy no thirst; they 
are charming, but they are not the Nile. So Dr. Watkinson says the nat- 
ural or the physical must not be allowed to eclipse the spiritual in which 
it lives and holds together. Suns, moons, and stars are golden lotus-flow- 
ers of the river of God; they derive their splendor from him, they are sus- 
tained by him, and we must not permit the water-flowers to divert our 
thought from the God whose glory streams through the creation making 
it all that it is. 

The Worldly Conception of Life (713). 
By many the question of what a man is worth is answered in terms 
of dollars and cents. He who has made a fortune, although his soul has 
dried up in the process until all its juices are gone and only the thin, 
fierce lust of accumulation is left is adjudged to be a success, and he who 
has lost a fortune is said to have failed. To many there is no other con- 
ception of the enlargement and enrichment of life than to multiply its 
outward luxuries. Food, drink and raiment having been obtained suffi- 
cient for all normal and wholesome use, the one concern is for more and 
hner food, drink and raiment. It may now be pate de foie gras instead 
of salt pork, champagne instead of beer, silk and broadcloth instead of 
corduroy and calico, a mansion on the avenue, a villa or a palace in New- 
port in place of the humble home on the back street. But all too often the 
object of life has not changed. It is just as materialistic as ever. Its 
tone has not risen. It has rather lowered. There is no spiritual purpose 
or meaning to It In their eyes. They are so busy making a living that 
they never stop to think about the life. — Womar. 

Wealth and Worldliness (714). 

Our nation Is gaining in wealth and growing more worldly. "The per 
capita ratio of the visible resources of the people of this country is about 
$1,200 apiece; and If any one suggests that the multi-millionaire has 
grabbed It all up, we point to the reports of the savings banks, which 
have accumulated over three billion, six hundred and sixty million dollars, 
and which have nearly eight million, seven hundred thousand depositors; 
and to the crop reports, which Indicate that the wealth which comes out 
of the ground aggregates nearly seven billion dollars a year; and to the 
lists of stockholders of the national banks, which show that these great 
Institutions are held by a multitude of modest Investors; and to the hun- 
dreds of millions of dollars paid out as wages each year by the Industries 
of the land." Prosperity Instead of breeding gratitude frequently leads 
Tr\fn to forget God. This nu-ans disaster. It Is better to be poor and be- 
lieving than rich and worldly. — Selected. 

Detachment (715). 
When the Second Adventlst informed Mr. Emerson that the world waa 



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about to come to an end, Mr. Emerson answered, "I can get along very 
well without it." That is one of the formulas of the simple life. The 
heart of the matter is the spirit of detachment, whereby we make free 
use of all the pleasant things without being dependent upon them. — 
George Hodges. 

Love Not the World (716). 

Essayists, editors, preachers, teachers, sociologists, and plain, every- 
day folk are discussing the question, "What is the matter with the life of 
today?" John gave the answer nineteen centuries ago, when he admon- 
ished his friends to "Love not the world." That is what ails men and 
women today: we love the world overmuch; its pomp and pride and pa- 
rade and possessions. We have gone mad over things. Most of us are 
trying to "go the pace," and so we have lost our peace and our joy and 
our power. And with it all we are blind to the obvious fact that among 
the unhappiest persons on earth are those who have obtained most of 
this world's gifts. The love of the present world is the blight of our 
times; let us go to school to saintly old John to learn a better way. — 
Selected. 

Forgetting the Goal (717). 

To forget the goal is to forfeit its influence in toning up the life and 
keeping the aim high and true. 

The late Senator Dolliver — that man of high ideals and noble influ- 
ence^ — some time before his lamented death said: "From this time on, I 
am going to serve my conscience. I have been lecturing, I have saved my 
dollars and put them into a farm out there in Iowa. I am going to judg- 
ment in the next twenty years, and I am going so I can look my Maker 
in the face. I do not have to stay in public life. I can take my books, 
my wife, and my children, and if I am dismissed from the service for fol- 
lowing my convictions, I will go out to my farm, and stay until the call 
comes." 

Senator Dolliver stopped in the midst of his public career to 
remind himself of the goal, and it steadied him and ennobled all the days 
that followed. In this case "the call" came soon, but it found him ready. 

Why He Did Not Go (718). 

The Church of the Transfiguration in New York city is attended by 
nearly all the actors who go to church at all, and is considered by them 
the actors' church. Yet strange as it may seem, Dr. Houghton, the rector, 
whom they all so loved, never entered the playhouse. One day the great 
actor, Mr. Booth, who was calling upon the doctor in his study, said to 
him: "Doctor, why is it you never come to the theater to see us play? 
Are you down on us all?" 

"No," said the doctor, "it is not that. Mr. Booth, suppose some night 
you were suddenly stricken down with a great illness. I hope you would 
send for me. If you did, where would you like your messenger to find 
me, about my Master's business or in the parquet of some theater?" 

"Doctor, I would want to find you in your place of duty," replied the 
great actor. "I understand." 



XCV. BROTHERLY LOVE. 



"Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another."— 
1 John 4:11. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. J. Fleming develops the thought of this text thus: 
L The sacrifice of love. It is of this that John speaks when he says, 
"In thiB was manifested the love of God toward us." True, the visible 
world teems with illustrations of God's love, but this surpasses them all; 
true, our houses are filled with proofs of God's love, but this transcends 
them all. For "herein is love, not that we loved God." No; we had apos- 
tatized from him; we had cast off his allegiance; we were in arms against 
him; yet in this was manifested the love of God, that he gave his Son for 
us. Love, then, was the great mission of our Redeemer, to restore, re- 
claim, sanctify, save. And that love is the theme of the song which John 
heard in heaven, and which he calls a new song, the language of redeemed 
men. And Christ has given us the grandest example of sacrifice, for "he 
loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood." 

II. Out of sacrifice flows service. For such service as this we live 
in days of wonderful opportunities. Opportunities come to all. Like the 
stones, they lie at our feet; and he shall gather most who stoops the low- 
est, like him who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to 
"give his life a ransom for many." Our responsibilities will be meas- 
ured by our capacity to do good. Many indeed and splendid are the op- 
portunities of service in our day. Never was the Church so powerful in 
numbers, In wealth, in influence, in organization. There is a work for 
every man and woman, and a place for every little child. What we want 
is more quiet consecration in all our work, more of the spirit of love in all 
our religion. 

♦ * * 

In speaking on "How to Learn to Love," Prof. Henry Drummond 
said: 

I. What makes a man a good artist — a good sculptor — a good musi- 
cian? Practice. What makes a man a good athlete? Practice. What 
makes a man a good man? Practice. Nothing else. There is nothing 
capricious about rMitfion. We do not get tho soul in a different way — 
under different laws — from that In which we get the body. If a man does 
not exerclso his arm, he gets no biceps muscle; and if a man does not 
exercise his soul, ho has no muscle In his soul — no strength of character, 
no robustness. Love Is not a thing of emotion and gush. It Ib a robust, 
strong, manly, vigorous expression of the whole character and nature In 
Its fullest devolopmont. And these things are only to be acquired by 
dally and hourly practice. Do not quarrel, therefore, with your lot In life. 
Do not quarrel with the quality you have of life. Do not be angry that 
you have to go through a network of temptation — that you are haunted 
with It every day. That Is your practice, which God appoints you. 

II. "Wo love because he Hrst loved us." "We love" — not "We love 
him." That Is tho way tho old version has It, and it is wrong. "We love 



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because he first loved us." Look at that word "because." There is the 
cause of which I have spoken. "Because he first loved us." The effect 
follows that we love him — we love all men. Our heart is slowly changed. 
Because he loved us, we love. Contemplate the love of Christ, and you 
will love. Stand before that, and you will be changed into the same im- 
age, from tenderness to tenderness. There is no other way. You cannot 
love to order. You can only look at the lovely object, and fall in love 
with it. You cannot command yourself to do it. And so look 
at the great sacrifice of Christ, as he laid down his life all 
through life, and at his death upon the Cross of Calvary; and you 
must love him. Love begets love. It is a process of induction. You put 
a piece of iron in the mere presence of an electrified body, and that piece 
of iron for a time becomes electrified. It becomes a temporary magnet in 
the presence of a permanent magnet, and as long as you leave the two 
side by side, they are both magnets. 

* * * 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
Love Rises Above Caste (719). 
Some one has summed up the litany of feudalism in this couplet: 
"God bless the squire and all his rich relations, 
And teach us poor folk how to fill our stations ! " 
Christian love is superior to class and caste. 

A New Sense of Brotherhood (720). 
There Is coming over the world a new sense of brotherhood. It is 
manifesting itself in many ways. It is seen in the rapidly growing senti- 
ment against the peoples of different nations destroying one another in 
wars. It is seen in Hague conferences and the 158 arbitration treaties 
signed in this century. It is seen in the fact that thousands of people who 
do not suffer are working to save others from suffering, as in the fight 
against child labor, the saloon, tuberculosis, white slavery, economic in- 
justice. It is seen in the new social enthusiasm of the church. It is seen 
in the Missionary movement. It is seen in the 470 international confer- 
ences where men of all nations assemble to fight humanity's common 
foes. — Rev. Frederick Lynch. 

Love's Leniency (721). 

I ought not to pronounce judgment on a fellow creature until I know 
all that enters into his life; until I can measure all the forces of tempta- 
tion and resistance; until I can give full weight to all the facts in the 
case. In other words, I am never in a position to judge another. — Ham- 
ilton W. Mabie. 

The Law of Love (722). 
So important is this law of love that God has ordained the family by 
which he calls us out of individualism into the larger service of the house- 
hold. Above the family altar is the national altar, and the nation Is the 
divine organism by which God calls us out of the narrower love of the 
clan into the larger service of the state. Above the family altar and the 
national altar is the altar of the church, on which God calls us to offer 
our lives for the salvation of the race. Missions rise above the local 
church interests because they summon us to the highest and broadest 



BROTHERLY LOVE 



471 



service. Surely in nature and in human institutions are the finger-prints 
of him "through whom all things were made." 

Love is wisdom. The martyr is the philosopher. Only as we forego 
all personal and temporal aims do we rise into the region of the uni- 
versal and the eternal. Light, the most beautiful of all gifts, never shows 
itself, but only the object it falls upon. Love is the greatest law in the 
universe. — Selected. 

Our Love Measures Our Power to do Good (724). 
Since the measure of our love to others is the measure of our power to 
do them good, we must cultivate and increase this love by all means within 
our reach. Nothing is of such consequence or such comprehensiveness as 
love; nothing is so strong, so sweet, so full of power and peace; it mag- 
nifies the smallest gift and dignifies the most insignificant task; it con- 
quers the most obdurate and binds together the most dissimilar. — Selected. 

Burden Bearing (725). 
Burden bearing is presented in the Scriptures in three general as- 
pects, each worthy of consideration in itself and in all their relations each 
to the other. We are exhorted to "bear one another's burdens," in a spirit 
of sympathy and helpfulness. But some will say, "I am bearing all I can 
of my own, how can I bear any more for another?" This is a wrong idea 
of spiritual Bervice. In helping another you gain strength for your own. 
It is not like shifting weight in pounds and ounces from one heavily bur- 
dened to another, and so to crush one by relieving another; in the matter 
of spiritual service one bears his own easier who helps another to bear 
his. Here ia one bearing a weight of ignorance concerning the word of 
God. If the conscientious teacher will try to help him with the burden 
by teaching, he will not only help him into the truth, but he will find the 
same truth becoming more fully his own by the very effort to explain it 
to another. All self-sacrificing labor communicates a glow and an uplift 
to the soul that gives to it power and strength to cast our burdens on the 
Lord. — Selected. 

Love Supreme (726). 

Great Is faith and groat Is hope, but greater than these Is love. Faith 
Is mighty even to the moving of mountains; it Balls the wildest seas; it 
can open blind eyes, can do many a miracle; It Justifies the soul and an- 
ticipates heaven. Great is faith; but love is greater. Faith tires betimes; 
love Is unwearied. Faith Is not always welcome; love Is at home every- 
where and travels all tho world without a passport. Faith 1b now and 
again a day late. Love stayed last at the cross and came flrBt to the sep- 
ulchre. Faith and hope Ions for heaven. Love is heaven; for God is 
love, and when we love we are In heavon. 

Would you get out of a man the best that Is In him, tho appeal must 
be to love. One may loam geometry, yet may not know nor have even so 
much as heard of Euclid. But we cannot rightly accept "theBo sayings of 
mine" without taking to our hearts him who said them. We cannot 
separate Christ's proceptB from Christ's person. "Never man spake llko 
this man." As he continues to speak, follow him up and presently you 
will cry, "My Lord and my God! Thou alone haBt tho words of eternal 



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life; to whom else can we go?" "Lord, thou knowest that I love thee." 
"If ye love me, keep my commandments,"— do my will; "Be doers of the 
word and not hearers only." Let your deeds be your eulogists. More elo- 
quent than words, more effective than self-assertion, is the doing of the 
Master's will, prompted out of a heart full of love for the Master and 
deeply imbued with his truth.— John R. Paxton, D.D. 

Love the Generator (727). 

The great electric generator in the power house is started by steam. 
Then it is swung into the mechanical system of which it is a part, and 
immediately it begins to run by a new power. The steam becomes then 
no longer necessary, for the engine has been brought into unison with the 
electric current which comes from the vast storehouse of the earth, and 
with that new and throbbing life it proceeds now on Its mighty way. 
Henceforth you cannot stop it without stopping all the vast enginery of 
which it is a part. However a man may begin in his course of right living, 
with whatever vision of what is before him, or impulse from what lies 
within and about him, it is only when he has some one to love that he 
really becomes aware of the power he possesses. Then he works. Then 
he sacrifices. Then he is filled with the joy which both satisfies and 
ennobles. — Stimson. 

Love for Friend and Foe (728). 

Many years ago two British officers, Captain Conolly and Colonel Stod- 
dart, were thrown into prison by the Afghans in Bokhara, and after six 
months in a miserable dungeon, they were beheaded. 

For a long time their fate was unknown in England, until a mission- 
ary undertook a dangerous journey to Bokhara, and ascertained that they 
had been murdered two years before. Five years later, a Russian officer, 
passing through the bazaar in the city, picked up a little well-worn 
English prayer-book which Captain Conolly had used in prison, and in 
which he had written an account of his sufferings. The Russian officer 
purchased the book and carried it home to St. Petersburg. 

The little prayer book that lay for seven years on the shelves of a 
Bokhara bazaar, next spent fourteen years in St. Petersburg, where an 
English visitor, who chanced to see it, begged permission to take it to 
Captain Conolly's relatives in England. Thus, twenty-one years after her 
brother's death, Miss Conolly received the book that told of his suffer- 
ings. About that time a mission hospital was opened at Banhu, near 
Bokhara, and Miss Conolly undertook the support of a bed in memory of 
her brother. Over it hangs a tablet which reads: "Conolly Bed. In mem- 
ory of Captain Conolly, beheaded at Bokhara." 

No wonder that when the doctor in charge tells the sick Afghans of 
the way the Christian lady took her revenge, they are impressed that 
here is something very new and strange — an object-lesson of the love of 
Christ.— World-wide Missions. 



XCVI. THE ASSURANCE OF ANSWERED 
PRAYERS. 

"And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything 
according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, 
whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that are 
desires! of him."— 1 John 5:14, 15. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 
In a sermon on this text, Rev. Dr. J. Moorhouse said: 
The power by which we overcome the world is the Divine life which 
we have in the Lord Jesus Christ; but In order to our obtaining that life 
two conditions must be fulfilled: first, God must give it; and secondly, we 
must take It. 

I. God must give It, for although there may be many things that we 
could earn or produce for ourselves, obviously there is one thing which we 
could neither earn nor create, into which, It Is plain, we must be born — that 
Is, our life. Now this is true of all life, whether the life that we possess by 
nature, or the life that we possess by grace. Nevertheless, respecting the 
Divine life that is in Christ Jesus, a further affirmation must needs be 
made. It must not only be given us by God, but it must be taken through 
our faith. And this arises from the very nature of spiritual things, for 
when God 1b Bald to have made us free and responsible creatures he la 
said In effect to have ordained that our obedience should be of a certain 
quality, that It Bhould not be that of the world, unconscious and con- 
strained, not that of the beasts, unconscious and instinctive, but that of 
the holy angels, the voluntary obedience of a free and virtuous choice. 

II. What is meant by asking according to God's will? We must 
make both the matter and the spirit of our prayers correspond to his 
will. We must ask first in the right spirit, and then for the right thing. 
1. We must aak In the right spirit. We must, as the Apostle says, lift 
up holy hands. In the hands of supplication which we raise to heaven 
there roust be found no sinful and Inordinate desires. 2. We must ask 
the right thing. You will find what Is according to God's will, what you 
not only may expect, but must expect, to receive, in the pages of God's 
holy word. Lord Cllve, we are told, once when he was in India was 
taken into a vaulted chamber which was filled from end to end with all 
kinds of treasure; there were heaps of gold, heaps of silver, heaps of 
precious trinkets, heaps of Jewels; and he was told by the native ruler 
of Bengal to take as much as he pleased. And recalling that incident 
of hiB life, It Is said that he exclaimed, "I am amazed at my own mod- 
eration!" Now the niblc Ib God's treasure-house, filled from end to end 
with precious Jewels; and we are bidden to take as many of the rarest 
and richest as wo please, without money and without price. 

» * ♦ 

Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman 1b sponsor for this case of answered prayer, 
lie says: 

A friend of mine in Cincinnati had preached hlH sermon and Bank 



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back in his chair, when he felt impelled to make another appeal. A boy 
at the back of the church lifted his hand. My friend left the pulpit and 
went down to him, and said, "Tell me about yourself." The boy said, 
"I live in New York. I am a prodigal. I have disgraced my father's 
name and broken my mother's heart. I ran away and told them I 
would never come back until I became a Christian or they brought me 
home dead." That night there went from Cincinnati a letter telling his 
father and mother that their boy had turned to God. 

Seven days later, in a black bordered envelope, a reply came which 
read: "My dear boy, when I got the news that you had received Jesus 
Christ the sky was overcast; your father was dead." Then the letter 
went on to tell how the father had prayed for his prodigal boy with 
his last breath, and concluded, "You are a Christian tonight because 
your old father would not let you go." 

* * * 

J. A. Williams treated this text in this manner: 

I. Prayer is the expression of confidence in God. In general, the 
language of want, desire, and necessity. Specially, the language of the 
soul enlightened by the Spirit of God to discover its necessities, and to 
desire what the Divine bounty has provided for it. It is intelligent — dis- 
criminating — definite — embracing the exercise of faith in the Divine pur- 
pose, and in the Divine integrity. II. Our petitions, embodying the soul's 
confidence, are regulated by God's promise and warrant. His will as 
revealed. Precepts concerning our progress in holiness, to which all else 
is subordinate. Promise, aid to ourselves — deliverance — support — com- 
fort — spirit to the Church — conversion of sinners — progress of truth. 
Promise, revelation of Divine intention, in relation to the moral progress 
of the soul. Points out the position and helps to attain it — ground of 
faith and measure of trust — God hath said, and faith may confide. 

III. Faith brings within the range of our experience the blessings we 
thus desire. Faith, not an opinion, nor a bare persuasion, but an intelli- 
gent, active principle: 1. Apprehending the good promised and sought. 
2. By its moral influence it prepares and qualifies for the enjoyment of 
the promised good. 3. The love, thus relying on the promises, becomes 
conscious of the blessings bestowed. An apprehension of good prom- 
ised — definite faith— strong desire and purpose— seeking God's glory — will 
bring us to realize God's promises. 

"When the Lord changes our petitions in his answers, it is always 
for the better; he regards (according to that well-known word of St 
Augustine), our well more than our will." — Leightom 

# * * 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

What Happens When You Pray (729). 

Now, what happens when you pray? You express a petition, a desire 
of your heart. That in itself is an expression of your will, not necessarily 
in words, but in thought. In the sight of God you have declared your will 
In a certain direction. If that is along the line of God's benevolent in- 
tention for you, then it has become possible for God's energy to operate. 
Before your prayer it could not operate because you resisted, or because 



THE ASSURANCE OF ANSWERED PRAYERS 



475 



you failed to communicate. The contact brings the current. Suppose an 
arm of iron, charged with a powerful electric current, swings out over the 
water, and a wire is brought up into contact from the other side of the 
river. A hundred wires are attached, and they will draw the current. 
But each wire must be brought into position and the contact must not be 
broken, or there is no benefit from the main current. I suppose that to a 
man whose mind is hardened by materialism and commercialism, prayer 
is Just as strange and incredible as a conversation by telephone would be 
to a savage from Central Africa. But let the savage live a few months in 
the city and become civilized, and even before he is well educated he 
will be using the telephone for all practical purposes. Let him go to an 
industrial school to study or work for a few years, and he will be able to 
explain the telephone system to you, and he may even construct a switch- 
board for your service. It has all become reasonable and credible to him. 
It has become second nature. But while he was in the jungles of Africa 
the telephone would have seemed sheer nonsense to him. 

The beautiful and melodious organ of the New York Avenue Metho- 
dist Church was constructed by an Armenian young man who, a few 
years ago, was living in the primitive conditions of a Turkish village, 
conditions as far removed from modern science as was the nomad life of 
Abraham. Yet a course of education at the Mission College and then at 
Edinburgh, Scotland, in an organ factory, have made of him a master 
mechanic and a musician of no mean ability. 

So I believe it is in the life of prayer. — Rev. S. van R. Trowbridge. 

Prayer is Communion (730). 
Prayer is "the practice of the presence of God." Prayer becomes the 
meanB of mutual communication between me and God. I communicate to 
him an aspiration; he communicates to me an inspiration. And so we 
find the Master saying, "Men ought always to pray, and not to faint." 
In the life of the spirit we begin to expire the moment we cease to aspire. 
Spiritual aspiration makes spiritual expiration impossible. "Men ought 
always to pray" and they would never faint. Prayer is a means to the 
restful realization of the Eternal, and so is a means to the culture of faith. 
—J. H. Jowett, D.D. 

World Movers Men of Prayer (731). 
Some years ago a great London newspaper announced in heavy, 
leaded lines these words, "Gordon asks for the Prayers of the People of 
England." Here was a great Christian soldier advertising for prayer. 
Chinese Gordon, as everybody called him, was then speeding on camel- 
back across the desert of Upper Egypt, golnp by direction of Mr. Glad- 
stone to rescue the people of the Soudan from the fury of the False 
Prophet. He was the man who had saved China from a war which 
threatened the destruction of the Empire. When his life was In danger 
In Khartoum, In 1884, prayer was offered for him in the churches of Eng- 
land and America. In the Roman Church and Greek Church, In the tem- 
ples of China and even before the shrine of Mecca. His death plunged 
London Into such a gloom that the day has been known ever since as 
"Black Thursday." 



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The world movers have been men of prayer. It has been the men of 
prayer who have made and crushed empires; who have crossed 
unknown seas, who have traversed trackless deserts, who have discovered 
unknown worlds, who have almost measured infinity. Washington was a 
man of prayer. Gladstone was very religious. Men of prayer have been 
men of faith, and prayer is the voice of faith. — Selected. 

How God Answers Prayer (732). 

A large, splendidly-equipped steamship sailed out from Liverpool for 
New York. Among the passengers were a little boy and girl, who were 
playing about the deck, when the boy lost his ball overboard. He imme- 
diately ran to the captain, and shouted, "Stop the ship, my ball is over- 
board!" The captain smiled pleasantly, but said, "Oh, no, my boy! I 
can not stop the ship with all these people, just to get a rubber ball." 
The boy went away grumbling, and confided to the little girl that the 
captain didn't stop the ship because he couldn't. He believed the ship 
was wound up some way in Liverpool, and she just had to run, day and 
night, until she ran down. A day or so afterward, the children were 
playing on deck again, when the little girl dropped her doll down into the 
engine-room, and she supposed it, too, had gone overboard. She said, 
"I will run and ask the captain to stop the ship and get my dolly." "It's 
no use," said the boy; "he can't do anything, I've tried him." But the 
little girl ran out to the captain with her story and appeal. The captain 
came and peeked down into the engine-room, and seeing the doll, said, 
Just wait here a minute." And, while the ship went right on, he ran down 
the stairway and brought up the little girl's doll, to her delight and to 
the boy's amazement. 

The next day the cry rang out, "Man overboard!" and immediately the 
bell rang in the engine room, by orders from the lever in the hands of the 
captain; the great ship stood still until boats were lowered and the life 
was rescued. Then she steamed on until she reached her wharf in New 
York. As soon as the ship was tied up, the captain went up town and 
bought the boy a better ball than the one he had lost. Now, each of the 
three prayers was answered. The little girl received her request without 
stopping the ship; the little boy, by a little waiting, received his also; and 
yet, for sufficient reason the ship was stopped by a part of the machinery 
itself, not as an afterthought, but something put into the ship when it 
was made. — Henry Drummond. 

Power Through Prayer (733). 

I shall never forget a scene in the Tremont Temple, Boston. Every 
seat was taken; the platform back of me was packed with leading minis- 
ters of Boston and New England. In front of me were leading men and 
women in the social, business and political life. I took up the program 
to announce the next speaker, as I was chairman of the convention, and 
I saw the name of a woman. In those days I was prejudiced against 
women speaking in public. Furthermore this woman I knew had had al- 
most no experience in public address; she had only been a real Christian 
a very short time, though she had been a nominal, worldly Christian for 
years. But I had to announce the program, so I announced the name 



THE ASSURANCE OF ANSWERED PRAYERS 



477 



of this woman as the next speaker, sat down, buried my face in my hands, 
and commenced to pray that God would save the meeting from disaster. 

Pretty soon I began to watch as well as pray. That whole audience 
sat spellbound, every eye riveted on that little woman. Then I saw 
strong men taking out their handkerchiefs and trying to pretend they 
were not crying. Then they threw off all pretense, and the tears rained 
down their cheeks; and before that woman had finished, that whole audi- 
ence was swept by the power of her words as the trees of our Western 
forests are swept by a cyclone. 

When that marvelous address was over some of us went to this lady 
and said, "God has wonderfully used you this morning." She said, "Would 
you like to know the secret of it? Last night as I thought of the great 
audience I should face in the morning and of my utter inexperience in 
public address, I spent the whole night on my face before God in prayer." 
Brethren, when you and I shall spend more nights on our faces before 
God in prayer there will be more days of power when we face our audi- 
ences. 

Do you want power? Ask for it. The great need of today is prayer, 
prayer, prayer! What we need in the church is prayer. What we need 
In our Individual lives is prayer. What we need in our work for Christ 
is prayer. "Ye have not because ye ask not." Let us see to it each one 
of us that we may be able to say, "I have, because I ask." — Selected. 



XCVII. STANDING IN THE SUNSHINE. 



"Keep yourselves in the love of God." — Jude 21. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. George F. Pentecost used the following Btriking setting 
forth of the heart of this truth: 

When I was a little boy of eight or nine years, I was sitting with my 
old grandmother before an enormous old-fashioned open fireplace on which 
a great fire of logs was burning. She suspended her knitting for a mo- 
ment (she was always knitting), and stooped down to arrange the two 
ends of a stick of wood which had burned through and fallen out on the 
hearthstone. In doing so, her spectacles fell off her nose on the stone 
hearth, and one of the eyeglasses was unfortunately broken. But "granny" 
quietly pulled the extra pair, which she always carried on the top of her 
head, down to her face, and picked up the broken pair. Having seen the 
extent of the damage, she took the whole eyeglass from the frame, and, 
turning to me, said: 

"Here Is something which will amuse you," and handed me the un- 
broken eyeglass. 

It was double convex lens; but then a convex lena was a scientific 
instrument of unknown value to me, so I said: 

"I don't see how I am to amuse myself with that, grandma." 

It was a brilliant day In winter time; the sun was shining from a 
cloudless sky, and being near noon time, It was at the height of its 
power. 

My grandmother led me out on the veranda on the south side of the 
house, and taking a piece of paper with her, she placed the bit of glass 
above it, facing the sun. In an instant there appeared a brilliant circle 
of white light upon the surface of the paper. Drawing the glass up and 
down, the brilliant spot increased and decreased in size until the bright 
spot of light shrank to a point of white light; and then in a moment, to 
my astonishment, the paper began to smoke, and then to burn. I was 
filled with wonder and amazement The power of the double convex lens 
to concentrate rays of sun upon a focal point and generate such a heat as 
to produce combustion was unknown to me. Grandmother repeated her 
experiments upon the side of the house and upon the sleeve of my Jacket 
until I was wild to try It myself. Taking the glass, I bolted down the vil- 
lage street In search of boys to whom I intended to exhibit my wonderful 
"burning glasB.'" I quickly found an Interested company of spectators, to 
whom I explained the wonders of the glass and made demonstration of Its 
powers upon their Jacket sleeves and upon the back of tholr hands, when- 
ever I could Induce some skeptic to allow mo to prove to him that the 
smoke and fire were no tricks, but real substances produced by the glass. 

This llttla Incident of my childhood comes back to me now. How 
was It that the sun shining through that glass would burn even unto fire, 
when the same sun. shining out over all the world, only produced a mild 
and gentle warmth? The answer Is easy. Its power was concentrated by 



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means of the glass. Now, suppose one should say: "I believe in the heat 
of the sun, but I do not believe in your burning glasses, I am content 
with the sun at its natural strength." If it were a case of life and death 
that fire should be produced, a belief in and a use of the burning glass 
would be necessary. The sun would shine and give out a certain genial 
warmth, but it would kindle no fire unless its rays were gathered and 
focalized upon the point where the fire was desired. It is evan so with 
the love of God. It is shining out upon the whole world; and all men, 
saints and sinners, are gaining a certain measure of benefit from it; but 
the universal love of God for the world and all created things will not 
save a single soul. God has set a great burning glass in the earth, through 
which all the rays of his mighty love are refracted upon those who draw 
near to it. Jesus Christ is that burning glass. He is the one Mediator 
between God and man, through whom the saving grace and love of God 
works with power. Yonder he is lifted up to the sight of the world on 
the Cross of Sacrifice, and whosoever believeth in him is saved. As the 
sinner draws near to God by Christ Jesus, and looks at the invisible God 
as revealed in his Son Jesus Christ, and approaches him through that 
medium, lo! his soul is at once set on fire by the divine love which is 
shed on us abundantly by the Holy Ghost. 

It is here, and only here, that we can find the love of God operating 
in saving power. Let the children of God "keep themselves in the love 
of God," as that love is manifested and poured out upon us through Jesus 
Christ. 

* * * 

Rev. S. van R. Trowbridge used the following peroration in a sermon 
on this theme: 

Let me emphasize the permanence of love as the motive which shall 
shape and glorify our whole experience in the life of the future. There 
will come a day when the eloquence and science and accumulations of 
our earthly life must be left at one side. They are no more than the tem- 
porary scaffolding which is withdrawn when the cathedral is complete, 
ready to stand forth a marvel of grace and splendor. They are but the 
school books which contribute to the boy's education. But once the mind 
is trained and the manly character formed the old wornout school books 
are no more than rubbish. The well-developed mind is ready for new 
literature. As our childhood is to our mature manhood, so our earthly 
experiences stand related to our heavenly life. There in that larger, 
richer life the love of God shall find free expression, and we shall no 
longer see Christ "in a mirror darkly," but we shall see him face to face! 

What, then, does God demand of you today? How can you make the 
Christ love the master motive? If you are impulsive, ask God to give 
you the calm, restraining influence of a deeper love for Christ. Are you 
slow and unresponsive? Ask God for the fire which burned in the enthu- 
siasm of Jesus. Are you fault-finding and unforgiving? Study the effect 
of Christ's crucifixion upon the lives of those early disciples. Are you 
anxious about the future? Remember that love is immortal and those 
who love deeply and sincerely are the very children of God. Are you cold 
toward Christ? Ask God to forgive your ingratitude and help you know 
your Saviour so as to love him fervently. 



STANDING IN THE SUNSHINE 



481 



God has given you a will, a free will, that no one else can tamper 
with, a will that is for you to use and not to play with! God has given 
you a will, just as the builders of the Imperator have given the great 
ship a steering apparatus absolutely essential to the voyage. God wants 
you to make love the love of the heart of Jesus, the master motive of 
your life! 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 

How to Keep in This Love (734). 
Every time I am allured by the devil to sink my manhood in sensual 
distractions and I hold my manhood by the grace of God in stern, firm, 
pure self-control, I have got the palm. And there are men and women 
here who have been carrying that palm all through the week, the palm 
of a glorious moral firmness, the sovereign control that is ours by the 
grace of God. White robes, palms in their hands, they sing! A pure, 
strong life Is musical. That is to say, it is harmonious. That is to say, 
that all varied powers of the soul are concordant in obeying, giving 
homage, worship and glory to God. In the 103d Psalm, the Psalmist 
sings: "O my soul, and all that is within me (it sounds like an orches- 
tra), bless his holy name." To the younger people I would say, Sit 
down and write out the names of your orchestra. Look into your mind 
and examine the body, and every faculty, mental and spiritual, is a mem- 
ber of your orchestra, and write a list, and when you pray tonight pray 
that all that Is within you may praise and bless his holy name. It is the 
worship of harmony. They are clothed in white robes and all carry a 
palm, and they are all singing. God's statutes have become their Psalms. 
— Jowett. 

The Safe Place (735). 

In hie History of the Plague of London. Daniel Defoe tells how he 
was one day walking down Holborn and observed that the stream of 
passers-by kept, with conscientious precision, in the middle of the street. 
They feared lest they should run against plague-smitten people coming 
out of their houses on either the right hand or the left. Let us have an 
equal dread of the corruptions which menace our spiritual life, and show 
ourselves the possessors of that true religion, one of the marks of which 
Is that It keeps Itself unspotted from the world. Be found in the very 
center of the way. Place yourself as far from evil as you can. Remem- 
ber the risks which lurk around you, and walk with such care that your 
garments will be always white. — Rev. F. G. Selby. 

Just to be With Him (738). 
A father said: I was awakened the other night by the pressure of 
a firm little hand across my forehead nnd the touch of soft little lipa 
upon my cheek; and as I reached out In tho dark, and gathered the little 
fellow to me, I said, "What Is the matter, little man? What Is It you 
want?" "Oh!" he said, "nothing's tho matter, father, and I don't want 
anything but I Just thought I would come and be for a little while with 
you." Do you suppose that we are nobler characters than that great 
Father after whom those human fathe rhoods of ours nro named? Do you 
eupposo that if It Is sweet to have our little children come croeping 



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to us in the dark, it is not sweet to our Heavenly Father here, every- 
where, to have men, his sons, come stealing to his side and his love?— 
Sunday School Times. 

Realizing God's Love (739). 

For every degree of fear, from the blackness of the most paralyzing 
terror to the least gesture or tone that is insincere because of some lurk- 
ing apprehensiveness, there is a corresponding deliverance into the free- 
dom and brightness of love. This deliverance is accomplished by the 
realization of God's love to us. 

Love, God's love, is the mighty exorciser of the brute elements ot 
fear, hopelessness and despair. Who shall dominate his own inborn 
fear but he who is filled with the supreme love of Jesus? Fear will van- 
ish only under the burning rays of a love too ardent for our belief. 

There are but two classes of people in the world: those who tend 
toward the state in which there is no fear, but only perfect love, and 
those who tend in the diametrically opposite direction, toward a state 
where there is no love, but only absolute and unchanging fear. — Gates. 

How Love Develops Character (740). 

A woman spent the summer in the mountains and brought home with 
her in the autumn some pieces of lovely moss. She put it in her conser- 
vatory, and in the warmth of the place a multitude of beautiful little 
flowers came up among the moss. There are in us possibilities which, 
in common experiences, are not brought out, but when the warmth and 
light of the love of God pour about them they are wooed forth. — J. R. 
Miller, D.D. 

Love Perfects Service (741). 
Think of some young man a hundred years ago impressed into the 
service of the navy. Caught by the press-gang and torn away from home, 
how intolerable that service must have seemed! For a time, it would 
be the bitterest drudgery, performed with many a muttering and curse. 
There was no escape — it had to be performed — the lash and the irons 
followed disobedience; that, in the harshest and extremest sense, was the 
service of necessity. But can we not imagine that young man rousing 
himself into a worthier mood? At the call of danger he would forget 
his bondage, and think of the peril of his native land. And patriotic feel- 
ings would arise, and his duty to his country would awake; and now his 
service would be a nobler thing, because it was the service of his duty 
Then suppose that a young man like that had sailed in the same vessel 
with Lord Nelson, and had learned to love Nelson with that devoted love 
which filled the breast of every man who sailed with him. How differ- 
ent would his service now become! How gladly would he toil and fight 
and die! The thought of duty would be absorbed in love, and love would 
make his service perfect. — G. H. Morrison, D.D. 



SERMONS TO FRATERNAL ORDERS. 

XCVIII. THE NEIGHBOR SPIRIT. 

"But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who Is my neigh- 
bor?"— Luke 10:29. 

ILLUMINATIVE COMMENT. 

Rev. Dr. William G. McCready, in a sermon to Odd Fellows and 
Daughters of Rebecca, said: There was an interview between our Lord 
and a lawyer. The lawyer asks, "Master, what shall I do to inherit eter- 
nal life?" The Saviour refers him to the Mosaic law. The lawyer recites 
the law. Our Lord then says, "This do and thou shalt live." The lawyer 
is disBatisfled, and asks, "And who is my neighbor?" The answer is far- 
reaching in its teaching. It puts a new meaning on religion. 

The lawyer asked an academic question, and expected an academic 
answer. He represents a large class of people, who prefer religion to 
be a philosophy rather than a life. The lawyer's religion was largely a 
matter of ritual. The religion of Jesus Christ is a life, born of God and 
developed under God. The parable of the Good Samaritan illustrates in 
a beautiful way the question, "And who is my neighbor?" 

The word "neighbor" is a rery old word. It is used in the Old Testa- 
ment when God speaks to Moses as to how the Jews shall treat their 
neighbors i. e., klnspeople. The classic Greek writers use it frequently, 
largely in a technical sense as describing people who lived near by. Our 
Saviour puts a new meaning oc it. HiB gospel had for its main purpose 
the breaking down of national lines and prejudices. It was a revolution- 
ary sentiment; its reach was startling and overwhelming. It broke all 
shackles of prejudice; it destroyed all the ancient traditions, religious and 
social, of a proud people. It taught that all men were of one blood; that 
God was the Father of all. It was the Inception of a democracy which 
meant the restoration of man to a sonship In God; the abolishment of all 
slavery, social, moral and religious. 

The horizon showed the dawning of a new day. The splendid dignity 
of man was projected after many centuries, to the front, and man looked 
up to God to be taught. 

Christian people need now practical Instruction. Our doctrinal pre- 
dilections often befog our understanding. The doctrine of the Good 
Samaritan puts Christianity upon a plane where all people must commend 
it It shows Christianity to bo a life and conduct. It brings out clearly 
the elimination of all national or religious prejudice. It awakens In men's 
hearts a supreme pasBlon, not to promulgate cold tenets, but to present 
concrete Ideals of life. 

The man who fell among thieves Illustrates the Isolation and helpless- 
ness of humanity. God takes men and equips them to doal with all the 
needs and sorrows of their fellow men. Howard, studying the awful con 
dltions of the prisoners of the English and European prisons, gave his 
life to secure more comfort and hope for them. Christian men must come 
to a consciousness of the real significance of the faith that is In them. 
Our selfishness Interferes largely with our religious development. With 



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us, It Is self first and God and humanity last. The man who has a su- 
preme passion for God will have automatically a passion for mankind, its 
needs and difficulties. Never has man's highest self had such scope and 
opportunity as he has today. The heroes of the past might storm the 
citadels of the enemy. Explorers might waste body and spirit In behalf 
of science. The Knights Templars might dedicate themselves to deliver- 
ing Jerusalem from the infidels. All these might be inspiring and win 
the applause, but none of them approach the spirit of a Straus, who made 
it possible, by establishing milk depots for poor mothers, to secure pure 
milk for their sick babies. The reformation of Europe was but the out- 
burst of a splendid passion to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its 
pristine purity to mankind. We Americans are endowed by nature with 
inexhaustible resources — mental moral, social, political and industrial. We 
are the marvel of all nations. Like Benjamin of old, while we are the 
youngest, yet we are endowed with a double portion. One conspicuous 
resource we possess is our power of invention and initiative. Our his- 
tory inspires the world. Our intrepid spirit surprises other nations. Our 
philanthropy charms the other peoples. 

This spirit of invention and initiative moved certain men in the City 
of Baltimore, about one hundred years ago, to inaugurate what is known 
now as the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. This fraternal order was 
benevolent, and its benevolence was democratic in the fullest and best 
sense: while It was a secret order and imposed obligations of secrecy 
on its members, its chief purpose was to inculcate principles of friend- 
ship, love and truth. It was to present to the ordinary, everyday man 
the very best practical type of fraternity. Men were to be united by the 
strongest bonds of Christian fellowship, bound by the warmest ties of 
sympathy and inspired by the loftiest ideals of manhood. The history of 
Odd Fellowship has demonstrated to the world the sublime principles 
of Christian democracy and fraternity. 

Odd Fellows do not act under impulse nor are they influenced by 
ignorant prejudice. In no human organization is there such a flexible 
democracy; in no human organization do so many varieties of manhood 
meet: different in intellect, in social standing, in financial ability, all 
meet on the common level of brotherhood. A common sympathy and so- 
licitude is shown to the sick brother, when the lodge hears of his infirm- 
ity, not by a word offered simply, but by money, sick benefits, doctor's 
care, a nurse's attendance; in case of death, a fixed sum for funeral ex- 
penses. The widow and orphans become at once the charge and care and 
solicitude of the local lodge. 

Where shall we find loftier Ideals of fraternity and fellowship? The 
sick brother whose source of income has ceased is comforted by the fact 
that his lodge will send him a certain income weekly, not as a charity, 
but as a purchased right and privilege. There are other benevolent or- 
ders, but Odd Fellowship was the pioneer which blazed the way in the 
wilderness of selfishness and set the God-given standard. 

* * * 

Preaching on the spirit of helpfulness Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis said: 
Here is a little book called "The Penny Philanthropist." It is a page torn 
from life. Over on Halsted Street Chicago, midst the saloons and gam- 



THE NEIGHBOR SPIRIT 



483 



bling dens and dives, lives a girl, still in young womanhood. She was left 
an orphan in her teens with the task of caring for her younger sister and 
brother. She rented a tiny little room between an Italian restaurant and 
a Jew's second hand clothing store. She sold papers in the morning 
and at night, and between times she made clothes for her sister and 
brother and kept house for them. Finally through Christ's saying about; 
giving a cup of cold water in the name ot a disciple, she determined to 
give one cent a day, and to find the person with whom the cent would 
go farthest possible by way of investing herself. This search for the 
neediest person soon became fascinating. One of her later experiences 
was of a boy In the gray dawn of a winter morning. Peggy's quick eye 
told her that he was a country boy, out of work, discouraged, and that 
each day his clothes would be thinner and his face more gaunt. Knowing 
that the boy was probably too proud to accept* the gift of a paper, Peggy 
asked him to tend her papers fcr a few minutes while she attended to 
some task indoors, and stepping inside she poured a cup of hot coffee 
and a roll. Soon she came back, most effusive in her thanks, and asked 
him to step Inside because she could watch her stand just as easily 
through the window, and the story of that boy, and what Peggy did for 
him, makes up a fascinating page in the epic and drama of a story of a 
man's life. 

Once a girl of the neighborhood came along, and in saying good 
night to Peggy showed singular agitation. The Penny Philanthropist 
saw that some crisis was on, and her quick eye noticed that the girl had 
slipped a note under the pile of daily papers. Suspecting a tragedy, 
Peggy invented a story of trouble within, induced the girl to bring ber 
something from the shop, found the letter and one glance revealed the 
fact that she was preparing to throw herself in the river, and wanted 
Peggy, when she found the letter, to notify her family. Then came all 
the ingenuities of love, that kept the girl moment by moment, and hour 
by hour, and finally drew out the full confession until our Penny Philan- 
thropist saved both the body and soul from death. A rich man, driving 
to his factory, stopped every morning and evening to get a bundle of 
papers and magazines. He had learned how Peggy, with a penny a day, 
had served her fellows. One morning he told her that he would like to 
give her a dollar every day to Invest for him, but Peggy answered, "But 
what good would that do you? It Isn't so much the penny, as It Is the 
person. It Is you behind the penny. I won't take your old dollar." The 
manufacturer carried away a wholesome surprise, but afterward through 
his daughter and her girl's club work, planned by the Penny Philan- 
thropist, he learned how to give himself. In many cities and states, I 
have asked. What heroic deed has been done In your community? What 
tragedy has overwhelmed your people? What romantic story of success 
has there been lived out? What poor boy has risen; what strong man 
has fallen? I have heard enough romances and tragedies for the essence 
of a hundred novels. Oh, the heroism of dally life! Tho OthelloB are 
all about us with their Jealousy! Here too tho Hamlets, slain by Inde- 
cision! Macbeths are destroyed by over-weenlng ambition. Jeanlo 
Deans Is hero still faithful to truth and God. Knights as stainless as Sir 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



Galahad are today on their quest. Sir Perceval still seeks and finds the 
Holy Grail. Never was the Vision Splendid so clear, never duty so high, 
or service so fine! Ten thousand sparkling deeds are being daily done 
for those who have eyes to see and hearts to understand. 



XCIX. FRIENDSHIP— FRATERNALISM. 



"A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." — 
Proverbs 17:17. 

ILLUSTRATIVE THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS. 
For Sermons to Fraternal Orders. 
Comfort (742). 

It is good to get at the root-meaning of our English word, comfort. 
The word has come to be suggestive of a cosy seat beside the fire on some 
winter's night. But the word itself finds its true meaning illustrated 
rather outside in the darkness and storm, where is some poor woman 
with a heavy basket on her arm, and a long, dreary way before her. Now 
comes one who speaks with such kindliness that she cannot but trust 
him. "You seem very tired," he saith, "may I help you?" And as he 
carrieB her burden her heart grows light and the way is easy. That is 
comfort. Co — that is, together with, or company; and fort — that Is, 
strength. To strengthen by company. That is it precisely. The moment 
we set out to live a better life, the gracious Master is ever going that 
way, and with gentle love he cometh to carry our burdens for us and to 
lead ub on our way. — Mark Guy Pearse. 

Friendship (743). 

That which men need from us is the result of our own experience, 
that which means something to us which we can say with conviction, and 
epeak out with Joy. The larger, therefore, our own claim in life, the 
larger must be the self that we have to give in friendship. My friend 
needs quite as much as I, that I should have true 6elf-reverence. More- 
over, it is impossible that that deep revelation of one's self, which is es- 
sential to intimate friendship, should ever be made where the spirit of 
the other is essentially profane and blasphemous. He, who can consent 
to tattle as an idle tale that sacred bit of your life which you have opened 
up to him in the hope of giving help at a time of mortal peril, can never 
be your friend. From such you must shut yourself. You have cast your 
pearls before swine and they have trampled them under their feet and 
turned again to rend you. — "The Laws of Friendship, Human and Divine," 
by President Henry Churchill King. 

Rich In Friendships (744). 

"I had a friend!" Is there anything more beautiful In all this world 
than the consciousness of possessing Bweet, loyal, helpful friends, whoso 
devotion is not affected In the least by a fortune or the lack of It; friends 
who love us even more in adversity than In prosperity? 

At the breaking out of the Civil War, when the qualifications of the 
different candidates for the Presidency were belns discussed, and Lincoln 
wbb mentioned, someone Bald: "Lincoln has nothing, only plenty of 
frlondB." It Ib true that Lincoln was poor, that when ho was elected to 
the legislature of his State ho borrowed money to buy him a suit of 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



clothes, in order that he might make a respectable appearance, and that 
he walked a hundred miles to take his seat. It is a matter of history that 
ha also borrowed money to move his family to Washington after he was 
elected President, but how rich he was in friendships! — Orison Swett 
Marden. 

Be Sympathetic (745). 

The only way in which the manifold claims of justice can be met is 
by the continual presence of an intelligent sympathy. Unless we can 
enter into the pleasures and pains of other people with some degree of 
participation, we cannot tell how to promote the one or avert the other. 
Only a keen sense of our friend's feelings will prevent us from wounding 
them; only a vivid realization of the needs of a community will teach us 
how to minister to those needs; only a close sympathy with the miseries 
which a special course of action will produce can lead us to take special 
pains to avoid that cause. If we are indifferent to all suffering but our 
own, we shall not exert ourselves to diminish it; if we care nothing for 
any joys but our own, we shall not strive to increase or perpetuate them. 
— Great Thoughts. 

The Heart of a Friend (746). 

"Broken friendship," says a recent writer, "like china, may be re- 
paired, but the break will always show." And it is a bit of real truth 
and wisdom. Friendship is a precious thing — too precious a treasure to 
be carelessly broken or thrown away. The world handles the word 
"friend" lightly; its real, true, deeper meaning is forgotten, and the ac- 
quaintance of an hour or the chance comer is designated by the term 
which in itself bears a wealth of meaning. Your friend is the one who 
appreciates you— your faults as well as your virtues — who understands 
and sympathizes with your defeats and victories, your aims and ideals, 
your joys and temptations, your hopes and disappointments, as no one 
else does or can. It is your friend to whom you turn for counsel, for 
comfort, for praise; he may not be as learned as some or as wise as 
others, but it suffices that he understands you, and even his quiet listen- 
ing gives strength and renewed courage. Blessed is the man or woman 
into whose life has come the beauty and power of such a friendship. 
Prize it well. Do all in your power to keep such a friendship unbroken. 
Avoid the break, for when it comes it can not be easily mended, and the 
jarring note mars the harmony of the whole glorious symphony. It is 
not alone a question of forgiveness; that may be full and complete. It is 
the hurt in the heart that will not readily heal and the confidence that 
will not fully come back! — The Pilgrim. 

I Had a Friend (747). 
A young man who had long been the victim of evil habits and had 
lost, as he supposed, every friend he had in the world, appealed to a busi- 
ness man of excellent standing for aid. It was granted with such a spirit 
of confidence and kindness that a new feeling came into the heart of the 
young man. It was the beginning of a friendship which grew stronger and 
stronger. The young man fell again and again, but his friend never 
wavered. He saw an opportunity to do good. He held the struggling 



FRIENDSHIP— FRATERNALISM 



489 



soul up, and when he fell lifted him up again. He turned his thought 
toward God and rescued him from the power of evil by the ministry of 
an unwavering and unselfish friendship. — Selected. 

Friendship (748). 

Human life offers us nothing else so beautiful as real friendship; not 
love, not prosperity, not fame, are so fair, so precious. So foster it! Let 
no distrust, no absence, no difference of environment dim its luster. Let 
death itself be powerless to rob you of its sweetness! Never break it, 
never lose it; it is the sweetest touch of mortal life. — The Canadian Pres- 
byterian. 

The Cultivation of Friendship (749). 
Recently a prominent business man, advanced in years, who had 
fallen in with a group of acquaintances on a holiday outing interrupted 
the conversation to say, "Well, I must hurry on, I have an engagement 
at three o'clock." Surprise being expressed that he should permit his 
holiday to be broken in upon by business appointments, he explained thai 
his engagement was not a business one, but that he had arranged to spend 
part of the day with a group of young men, some of whose names he 
mentioned, who were coming figures In the business and professional life 
of the community. He further said: "I have made it a practice to culti- 
vate the society of these young men. I am getting old; the friends who 
Btarted with me in the world have been dropping along the way until 
only a few of them are left. Unless I keep making new friends, there- 
fore, I'll presently find myself alone. I do not want to be In that position. 
I feel the need of friends. No one can afford to be without them. Hence, 
as the ranks are being depleted at one end, I try to fill them up at the 
other. That Is why I cultivate the society of these young men." — 
Selected. 

A Helping Hand (750). 
While on shipboard, returning from Europe, the late Hon. Luther L. 
Mills met a white-haired missionary who had spent his life among the 
natives of the interior of Africa. Shortly before the voyage was ended, 
Mr. Mills discovered the missionary in a dark little stateroom, sick and 
penniless. The famous lawyer held out "a friendly, helping hand," and 
Immediately raised a goodly sum from his passengers, presenting it to 
the aged servant of Christ. Shortly after, a stranger stepped up to Mr. 
MUIb on the ship's deck and handed to him this verse, as expressive of 
the spirit of the occasion. 

If you have a friend worth loving, 

LOW blm, yes, and let him know 
That you love him, fro life's evening 

Tinge his brow with sunset glow. 
Why should good wordB ne'er be said 
Of a friend— till he Is dead? 

If you hoar a song that thrills you. 

Sung by any child of song. 
Praise It. Do not let the singer 

Walt deserved praises long. 



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Why should one who thrills your heart 
Lack the joy you may impart? 

If you hear a prayer that moves you, 

By its humble, pleading tone, 
Join it. Do not let the seeker 

Bow before his God alone. 
Why should not your brother share 

The strength of "two or three" in prayer? 

If you see the hot tears falling 

From a brother's weeping eyes, 
Share them. And by kindly sharing 

Own your kinship with the skies. 
Why should anyone be glad 

When a brother's heart is sad? 

If a silvery laugh goes rippling 
Through the sunshine on his face 

Share it. 'Tis the wise man's saying — 
"For both grief and joy a place." 

There's health and gladness in the mirth 
In which an honest laugh has birth. 

If your work is made more easy 

By a friendly, helping hand, 
Say so. Speak out brave and truly, 

Ere the darkness veil the land. 
Should a brother workman dear 

Falter for a word of cheer? 

Scatter thus your seeds of kindness, 

All enriching as you go — 
Leave them. Trust the Harvest Giver, 

He will make each seed to grow. 
So until its happy end, 

Your life shall never lack a friend. 

— The Presbyterian. 



C. TO ODD FELLOWS. 



A Sermon by Rev. I. M. Schaeffer. 

"And Jonathan said to David, Go In peace, forasmuch as we have sworn 
both of us In the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord be between 
me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed, forever." — 1 Sam. 
20:42. 

Man 1b a social being. In the human breast, there resides the Instinct 
of fraternity. Thi9 instinct of fellowship with kindred spirits may be 
turned to evil account quite as readily as to good account. I welcome 
you as a lodge of Odd Fellows because of the fact that you are turning 
the Instinct of fellowship into channels of Friendship, Love and Truth. 
You are constraining this instinct to minister in the interests of friend- 
ship, fraternity and fidelity. You are harnessing the instinct of fellow- 
ship to high ideals; you are hitching its car to the star of noble purposes. 

I welcome you for the reason that Odd Fellowship is the hand-maiden 
of religion. In reference to religion, James has this to say: "Pure re- 
ligion and undeflled before our God and Father is this, to visit the father- 
less and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from 
the world." Odd Fellowship not merely uses the parable of the Good 
Samaritan, In Its ritualistic work, but It translates this most beautiful 
story into actual life. The benevolent operations of Odd Fellowship 
are being conducted on a colossal scale. The Master said to the lawyer: 
"Go, and do thou likewise." We welcome to this sanctuary those who 
are Imitators of the Good Samaritan. Odd Fellowship Is the handmaiden 
of the Church; hence we bid you Godspeed In your work and most cor- 
dially welcome you to these courts. 

Odd Fellowship cultivates an eye and an ear for the signal of dis- 
tress. To the uninitiated, It may appear as If this Order existed for the 
sole purpose of conviviality. On the contrary. Odd Fellowship has a sen- 
sitive ear and a far-seeing eye for the signal of distress. The Master said: 
"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you 
rest." To a surprising degree has the spirit of the Master become Incar- 
nate In the bosom of Odd Fellowship. 

The thought which our text suggests may bo expressed In two words. 

Friends Forever. 

Jonathan and David established an eternal covenant of friendship 
between themselves and their offspring. They covenanted to be friends 
forever. Without this element of permanence, friendship would be sadly 
defective. Of our Master it Is written, "Having loved his own which were 
in the world, he loved th«-m to the end." 

L The first link In the three golden links of the badge of Odd Fel- 
lowship la emblematic of Friendship. Webster defines friendship thus: 
"The entertaining for another sentiments of esteem, respect and affection. 



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GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



from personal predilection." Friendship is a virtue which can be but 
imperfectly defined; it is a virtue which must be felt. Some one has said 
that a true friend shows his friendliness by his sympathy. Sympathy 
is making another's experience his very own. A true friend reveals the 
secrets of his heart to his friend. He draws the curtain of his heart to 
one side and invites his friend into the holy of holies of his life. This 
unveiling of the heart and life must of course be mutual else it would be 
impossible. We wonder in amazement .at the words of our Master: "No 
longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord 
doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard 
from my Father I have made known unto you." A true friend puts the 
best construction on the conduct of others. An enemy, on the contrary, 
puts the worst construction on our acts. The expert photographer has 
noted that every face, even the most homely, has certain noble linea- 
ments and that these may be brought out so as to characterize the pic- 
ture, by properly posing the person in relation to the camera and the 
falling light. On the other hand, the instrument can make the brightest 
faces dull and the fairest repulsive, if the artist is so disposed. It is this 
happy art which Odd Fellowship seeks to cultivate, namely, to discover 
traits of soul-beauty in the diverse characters of its membership. 

But the true friend does not hesitate to rebuke our faults. A prom- 
inent member of your Order pointed out to me new members who were 
saved to respectability and usefulness by the rebukes of their brother Odd 
Fellows. An enemy flatters, glosses over our faults. But a friend does 
not overlook the faults; on the contrary, he takes us to task for them 
and holds up for our emulation a noble ideal of character. 

A friend in need is the one who is a friend indeed. On this ground 
Odd Fellowship commends itself very strongly to the unbiased mind. 
Your Order cultivates in its members a profound concern for the unfortu- 
nate brother, for the widow in her bereavement and distress and for the 
orphan in his helplessness and peril. You will find the parable of the 
Good Samaritan engraven upon the heart and mind of every true member 
of your Order. This Order maintains fifty orphanages and homes for aged 
members in the United States alone. 

In an address delivered in 1900 in Richmond, Va., the Grand Sire of 
the Sovereign Grand Lodge of Odd Fellows, Allen S. Pinkerton, said: 
"If I am correctly informed, the present total taxable valuation (real and 
personal) of your city is $69,215,000. Raze beautiful Richmond to the 
ground, convert into coin every foot of land within its corporate limits; 
let every stone and timber of every factory, every business block, every 
dwelling house contribute to the sum; into the crucible put the jewels 
and stores of gold and silver; market the securities, bonds and stocks of 
the people; when you have done all this, when you have converted the 
city's soil and buildings into scrip, when you have stripped the citizens 
of all their taxable property, you will then be 15 million dollars short of 
the amount of money this Order has expended since 1830 in brotherly 
relief. At the present rate of charitable expenditure we distribute for 
such purposes the wealth of Richmond every 19 years; a distribution in 
which there is no expense account; in which every dollar finds its way 
into the pocket of the beneficiary." 



TO ODD FELLOWS 



493 



Especially strong and eloquent are ex-President Harrison's words in 
relation to the brotherhood of man as the highest conception that had 
ever entered the human mind, as expressed in his speech at the great 
council of Missouri: "The highest conception that has ever entered the 
mind of man is that of God, the Father of all men, the universal brother- 
hood. It was not evolved; it was revealed. The natural man lives to be 
ministered unto; he lays imposts upon others. He buys slaves that they 
may fan him to sleep; that they may bring him the jeweled cup; that 
they may dance before him, and that they may die in the arena for his 
sport. Into such a world, there came a King, not to be ministered unto, 
but to minister. The rough winds fanned him to sleep; he drank from 
the mountain brook; he did not use his power to stay his own hunger; he 
had compassion on the multitude. He called them whom he had bought 
with a great price, no more servants, but friends. He entered the bloody 
arena alone; dying, he broke all chains and brought life and Immortality 
to light" 

This spirit of the Master dwells at least to some degree in this 
order. So long as it cultivates this spirit of friendship in its membership, 
no one will question its right to live. It is small wonder that such an 
Order can boast of a million members in America alone. 

2. The second link in the badge is emblematic of Love. Fraternity 
is linked to friendship. Friendship and fraternity are links of gold. 
Henry Drummond described love as the greatest thing in the world; this 
definition of love helped to make Drummond famous. This definition is 
correct so far as it goes, but it is defective In that it does not go far 
enough. Love is not only the greatest thing in the world but it is also 
the greatest thing in heaven. God is love. Love is the divlnest thing 
in the universe. 

"There Is a gem which is called a flystone. To the naked eye it has 
no peculiarity; but place it under a mioroscope and you will see in the 
midst of It a tiny Insect, perfect in all its proportions, a riddle in the book 
of nature. How it came there no one knows, and no human skill could 
remove It. Whoso would touch that fly must first crush that wall of ada- 
mant around It. It is hid in the bosom of the gem. There Is in man that 
which can call God Father, which can never cease to be divine. That 
something is the spirit of God in man; and the spirit of God in the heart 
of man is love. It is the divinity that dwells in the human heart." "Be- 
loved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that 
loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God." Love's faith in love is the 
surest anchor amid the waves of a troublesome world. 

An eminent singer was kept by his teacher day by day and month 
after month practicing the scales in spite of the pupil's entreaties toi 
something more advanced. At last the master told him to go forth as 
the best singer in Europe, having mastered the scales. Not otherwise 
did our Lord teach his first disciples. For three years he taught them to 
love, by miracle and parable and prayer and sermon. When Beated with 
them at the last Supper, he said: "A new commandment I give unto 
you." And behold, it was the old one: "That ye love one another." 
After the resurrection, he met his disciples at the beach. He put the 
repentant Peter through the scales: "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou 



494 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



me?" Having perfected them In love, he said: "Go ye Into all the world 
and preach the Gospel to every creature." Having learned to love, their 
education was complete, their training was ended. They could now go 
everywhere and do all things. 

The apostle Paul wrote down the scales in 1 Cor. 13. You will do 
well to read this chapter every morning and to translate it into your lives 
every day. "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love 
vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, 
seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoic- 
eth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all 
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." 

Love comes to its highest expression in self-sacrifice. A train pulled 
out of Duluth with 250 passengers. Its engineer was James Root. As the 
train sped on, the sunlight became strangely darkened, the lamps were 
lighted and the great eye of the engine was set aflame. "There's a storm 
coming," one said to another. But the clouds were not those of the cool 
and refreshing rain. They were the death-pall of the forest fires that 
were laying the whole fair forest land waste. Soon the smoke wrapped 
the train in such density that the air became stifling. The light of the 
engine could penetrate only a few feet ahead. The town of Hinckly was 
reached, and here was found, no longer a village, but a heap of ashes. 
Frightened fugitives from the consuming flames clambered frantically 
aboard the train, begging to be taken from the pursuing flames that 
even now were leaping upon the engine. James Root, with his hand 
upon the throttle, began a race for life back over the way they had 
come. But the flames were faster than even the iron horse, the .window 
glass was shattered, and the blistered woodwork took fire. The cab win- 
dows were broken. Arms of flame reached in to catch the clothing of the 
brave engineer. The throttle became hot, and scorched the hand that 
held it, but the tense muscles did not for a moment relax their hold. 
"My God," the fireman heard him gasp, "all these lives in my keeping! 
Help me to take them to safety!" A little way ahead were the rank 
sedges and slimy waters of a swamp. If he could only take his train to 
that point, its precious human freight might be saved. Failure at the 
throttle meant death to the men, women and children back there in the 
cars. They were frenzied with fear, not knowing that a hero was at his 
post. Three times, overcome by the intolerable heat, did James Root 
fall to the floor of the cab, and three times he dragged himself up to 
grasp the throttle, the brave heart unfaltering, the brain calm and reso- 
lute. At last the swamp was reached, and there was a headlong hurrying 
from the burning train. As the last one reached the spot of safety the 
flames burst upon the train with a mighty roar. The noble engineer was 
carried in the arms of those he had saved. "Bear ye one another's bur- 
dens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." 

3. The third link in the badge is emblematical of Truth; truth 
taken in the sense of reality, integrity. ... I cannot refrain from inter- 
preting the word truth in the sense of fidelity. Friendship, fraternity and 
fidelity are three golden links of love, which cannot help but anchor the 
soul aright in any storm-tossed sea. The incident in which our text 
stands furnishes an illustration. King Saul and his sons are slain and 



TO ODD FELLOWS 



495 



the crown of the kingdom Is about to be placed on David's head. Ish- 
bosheth alone disputed his right to the sovereign sway over the entire 
nation. Jonathan with whom David had formed a covenant of everlasting 
friendship, had left a young son who In the flight with his nurse when 
the Israelites were defeated at the hands of the Philistines, fell and 
became a cripple for life. The child's name was Mephibosheth. And 
David said: "As for Mephibosheth, he shall eat at my table, as one of 
the king's sons." Accordingly Mephibosheth dwelt at Jerusalem and ate 
continually at the king's table. Later, David protected Mephibosheth 
from the revenge of the Gibeonltes, "because of the Lord's oath that waa 
between them, between David and Jonathan." David carried the spirit 
of a true Odd Fellow in his bosom. The three golden links of Odd 
Fellowship may be said to be Friendship, Fraternity and Fidelity. 

II. However the three links of Odd Fellowship would be without 
practical value, without a concrete attachment Friendship, Love and 
Truth are not abstract qualities but living entities which can live only 
when translated into the experiences of practical life. The thought 
which I have yet in mind may be thus expressed: 

Locks for these Links. — My conception of the links of Odd Fellowship 
is that they are interlocked. These links are locked upon each other; 
they are indlssolubly welded together. Friendship, Love and Truth are 
tntroactive and retroactive. Kindness, Charity and Character are not 
separate or separable entities; they are a trinity which is complete In 
unity. Friendship, Fraternity and Fidelity form a unity which would 
be incomplete with the loss of any one of these virtues; the links are 
Interlocking. 

L The links ought to be locked to the heart of the true Odd Fel- 
low. Separated from real heart love, the three links are as sounding 
brass and as a tinkling cymbal. The apostle Paul speaks with authority 
on this point: "If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and If I give 
my body to be burned, but have not love, It pronteth me nothing." The 
world would call that friendship and love. He says furthermore: "And 
if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge 
and if I have all faith, bo as to remove mountains, but have not love, I 
am nothing." Separated from a loving heart. Friendship, Love and 
Truth would soon become a hollow mockery. As wearers of the three 
links, I would exhort you to fasten them to your hearts, so that these 
virtues may be vital experiences and that the links may throb and thrill 
with virtuous activities. 

With these three links locked to your hearts, lock this triple-linked 
chain with the link of truth to your noble order. The poet sings: 

"Honor to her courts Invites us — 
Worthy subjects let us prove — 
Strong chain that here unites us 
Linked with Friendship, Truth and Love; 
In our hearts, enshrined and cherished, 
May these feelings ever bloom — 
Falling not when life has perished, 
Living still beyond the tomb." 



496 



GREAT TEXTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



Being linked and locked to your noble order is a very concrete thing 
and among other things it ought to mean that the other end of the chain 
is locked to the heart of every one belonging to your Order. It is not 
a long chain that unites you and hence not a single brother ought ever be 
out of sight or out of mind. It would be a crying shame if an Order which 
aims to write the parable of the Good Samaritan in the hearts of its 
members should carry on its roll a single member who when confronted 
by a brother in distress would snap the golden links of brotherhood and 
heartlessly pass by the brother in distress. The bond of brotherhood 
ought to preclude the possibility of such heartless barbarism. When the 
covenant of eternal brotherhood has been solemnized, when the love-lock 
has been fastened to a brother's heart, the key to the lock should be 
burled in the sea where it is deepest and the claims of brotherhood be 
owned and acknowledged forever. 

2. Let the chain that is locked to your heart be locked to the be- 
nevolent operations of your Order. 

"Give happiness. What If thy heart be sad? 
Dry thine own eyes to wipe another's tears. 
In this good world there are so many biers 
Carried by souls in blackest raiment clad. 
Souls dazed by desolation and half mad, 
Mourning their dead, dead hopes, dead years — 
Blind to the star that every midnight cheers, 
Deaf to the song which makes morning glad. 

"Give spicy blooms where flowers never grow; 
Give food where starving hearts fight fate's decree; 
Give rest where tired hands and feet drag slow; 
Give sight to eyes too full of tears to see; 
Give music where sweet trumpets never blow; 
Give happiness — and joy shall garment thee." 

3. Let the chain of Odd Fellowship be locked to other Fraternal 
Orders which cultivate a similar spirit. The churches of Christendom 
are cultivating and encouraging the spirit of interdenominational fellow- 
ship. The spirit of interdenominational federation is in the very air. 
It is a hopeful sign of the times. I believe that it augurs well for the 
successful solution of the grave problems which are challenging both the 
church and the state. Interdenominational brotherhood is the logical 
outcome of the spirit of Christ, operative in the churches of Christendom. 
As I step over the threshold of this fraternal Order, I would raise my 
voice in behalf of the federation of Fraternal Orders. Practical brother- 
hood is the keynote of them all. I hope that I may live to see the day 
when Odd Fellowship will say to Masonry, "We are Brothers," and vice 
versa; and thus all along the line of the Fraternal Orders. What a won- 
derful impetus these Orders could give to the moral uplift in a commu- 
nity, if questions which are purely moral should receive the endorse- 
ment of these Orders in an unobtrusive but none the less effective way. 
Many a crying evil could thus be speedily eliminated from the community. 

3. Let the chain be locked with the link of Loyalty to the Govern- 



TO ODD FELLOWS 



ment. Bismarck once gave expression to a Bentiment something like 
this: "I am not afraid to wear any chain only so that the other end of 
it Is linked to the throne of Prussia." Loyalty to the constituted author- 
ities, loyalty to the principles of the Republic, is one of the cardinal prin- 
ciples of our Order and which is constantly being instilled into the hearts 
and minds of the members whom it initiates. A traitor to our country 
would not find shelter at its altars. It would not dream of placing as a 
custodian over its shrines a man who had shown himself a traitor to the 
principles or the personnel of our government. 

5. Even though the links of brotherhood be Interlocked, if they be 
linked to the heart, if they be locked to this great and worthy Order, 
to its benevolent operations, yea, though your heart be locked in indis- 
Boluble loyalty to the Republic, if your heart be not linked in a covenant 
of friendship and loyalty to Jesus Christ, all else will count for nought 
and you will rob yourselves of the choicest blessing and the chiefest 
honor. Christ is the chiefest among ten thousand, the One altogether 
lovely and the Friend that sticketh closer than a brother. His love far 
surpasses woman's. Like Jonathan, he abdicated a throne, one far more 
glorious than even Solomon's; he received a spear-thrust into his heart 
so that Its poisoned point might not penetrate ours; his love for us causes 
the faithful friendship of Damon and Pythias to pale into insignificance 
In comparison, for he actually died that we might have eternal life. The 
throne which he abdicated to become our Saviour, he offers to share with 
his friends who have entered into a covenant of loyalty with him and 
who have come off as conquerors over the powers of darkness. With the 
links of Friendship, Love and Truth locked to your own heart, link your 
heart also in a covenant of love and loyalty to Jesus Christ 

"Which of all our friends, to save us, 
Could or would have shed their blood? 
But our Jesus died to have us 
Reconciled to him in God. 
This was boundless love indeed. 
Jesus is the Friend in need." 



INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. 
Numbers refer to illustration numbers and not to pages. 



Abiding in Christ 494 

Abiding, strength through. 495 
Abiding, the results of.. 156a 

Abundantly, more 608 

Achievement, field for — 121 
Acknowledging God's 

care 533 

Acquaintance, opportunity 

for better 31 

Activity, Christian 697 

Adversity develops re- 
sources 46 

Adversity, uses of 617 

Affection, expulsive power 

of 15S 

Affection, the lever of... 370 

Afflicted lives 503 

Affliction, fruitful 54 

Afflictions 616 

Afflictions a preparation. 27 
Afflictions overbalanced 

by blessings' 116 

All fullness dwells in 

Him 333 

"All s well" 138 

Always at it 648 

Anxiety 709 

Anxiety, antidote for.... 139 
Apathy; how conquered .. 376 
Apostles' creed around 

the world 429 

Apron strip*, story of the. 51 5 

Assimilation 676 

A'surance 656 

Atheist's change of mind. 75 

Atlanta's reform 447 

Atoning death, the 237 

Authority 224 

Awe 2 

B 

Barriers 18 

Battle of the apes. the... 461 
H-.-'s struggle for life. ..110 

Belief, living our 695 

I'.'lieve, I know whom 1.136 

Believe, only 38 

Believirg 671 

Believing in spite of ap- 

(,».-ir,->nr-s 42 

Benefits, counting the. ...531 

Benefits itemi/.ea 165 

Bible alone, the 397 

Bible, effect of 443 

Bible, effect of one copy. 408 

Bible is dynamic 406 

Bible in demand, the.... 398 

Bihl-'s influence, the 407 

Bihle's influence on hu- 
man life 749 

Bible promises 296 

Bible, reading the 154 

Bible, results of 123 

Bible version! 399 

Rihle-reading. effects of.. 400 
Bihle reading, results of. 395 

Blindness a talent 113 

Body registers soul con- 
ditions 576 

"Book finds me. that"... 421 

"Boosting" 630 

Bnv's rhnire, a 76 

Bread from Cod 164 

Breath of Cod. the 4R9 

Brihery repulsed 372 

Bright side, the 180 

Brotherhood, new sense of.720 



Brotherly love 10 

Burden bearer, the 330 

Burden bearing 725 

Burden of guilt, the 631 

Business, Christian 263 

Business men. Christian. 267 
Business o n Christian 
principles 262 



Calamity, consecrating ..113 

Calamity, the worst 362 

Call of life, the 128 

Call of the larger life... 246 

Care breeds, how 710a 

Care, curse of 709 

Care, our Father's 532 

Care, the shepherd's 133 

Cares, he 278 

Cause, the great first.... 4 

Chance, another 203, 243 

Chance or design 1 

Change but Christ does 

not, we 638 

Changed clean through.. 452 

Changeless Christ 177 

Changing years and the 

changeless Christ 686 

Character 260 

works in 544 

Character, how God 
Character is what God 

sees in you 88 

Character shows 610 

Character's enchantment. 61 5 

Cheer, be of good 701 

Child, as a little 195 

Child, church and 193 

Child nurture 194 

Child spirit, the 192 

Child, the manger 381a 

Child, when we teach a.. 197 
Children care of Chris- 
tianity 193 

Choice 75 

Choice, reaction of 77 

Christ and the poets 551 

Christ attracts the best.. 323 

Christ, blood of 461 

Christ can do for and in 

you, what 645 

Christ, clinging to 468 

Christ, conquered by. 541 

Christ, dark without 435 

Christ, finding all in 331 

Christ for us 444 

Christ has no rivals 521 

Christ, how to see 550 

Christ is alive! 600 

Christ Is born, the 384 

Christ is coming 579 

Christ left out 462 

Christ life, the 351 

Christ liveth in me 622 

Christ our example 681 

Christ, presence of 601 

Christ, rest and recupera- 
tion in 500 

Christ, road to 456 

Christ self-revealing ....434 

Christ, stayed on 493 

Christ supreme 523 

Christ, the divine 526 

Christ, the inevitable. .. .322 

Christ, the personal 624 

Christ, the transcendent .464 
Christ, the unfathomable. 528 

Christ, the work of 4f,0 

Christ, turning men to.. 269 

498 



Christ, victorious through. 562 

Christ within, the 497 

Christ within the life.... 625 
Christian way to live, the.483 
Christianity, benefits of.. 56 
Christianity ennobles char- 
acter . 122 

Christianity, evidence of. 692 
Christianity, results of. . 

61. 125 

Christianity, revolutioniz- 
ing influence of 250 

Christianity's blessings 125 

Christians and Christ.... 26 

Christmas gift 382 

Christ's claims 465 

Christ's face, seeing 335 

Christ's followers 667 

Christ's revelation of the 

Father 287 

Church, joining the 196 

Cities of the past 286 

Civic welfare, the seed of.403 
Claim, the strength of the. 377 
Cocoon and chrysalis ... .606 

Colors, show your 74 

Colors, showing your.... 326 

Come, how to 244 

Companionship, Christ de- 
sires our 33 

Comrades 19 

Confession 294 

Confession of wrong-do- 
ing . _ 327 

Confession, real 324 

Confidence 138 

Confidence, calm 140 

Confidence, conquering by. 661 
Confidence, courage and 

calmness through 479 

Confidence, strength of.. 207 

"Come" 204. 241 

Comfort 742 

Coming, the Master is... 346 
Companion, the great.... 499 
Conqueror of conquerors. 93 

Conscience, voice of 248 

Consecrated concentration. 120 

Consecration 303 

Consecration and concen- 
tration . 578 

Consecration, Booth's se- 
cret 28 

Contempt 23 

Contentment 483 

Conversion 39, 

244. 336, 540. 543. 546, 625 
Conversion, genuineness 

of his 562 

Convert, the young 321 

Convict converted 419 

Convince men, hard to.. 198 
Cost, not counting the... 361 

Covetousness 261 

Covetousncss, conquering 4 1 

Creation 1 

Crises, great 52 

Crisis and a process, a... 146 

Cross at the center 233 

Cross, dying on the 236 

Cross, falling toward the. 334 
Cross of Christ I glory, 

in the 234 

Cross of Christ, the 44S 

Cross, the banner of the. 378 
Crosses, we need our....6l8 



Danger below 711 



Danger, underestimating. 584 

Dark room, gain of 505 

Day will show, the 698 

Dead are the living, the. 427 

Death, faithful unto 366 

Death fearlessly, facing. .666 

Death, happy in 668 

Death is God's method of 

colonization 431 

Death, life after 430 

Death, our attitude to- 
ward 607 

Debasing the nation 186 

Decay at the heart 89 

Decision, the great...... 76 

Defender, our omnipo- 
tent 566 

Degrading view of life, a.285 

Delay . 79 

Delicately adjusted treat- 
ment . 503 

Deliverance 332 

Deluded 188 

Dependence on Him 488 

Design, argument from.. 5 
Desires, kindling of new. 416 

Detachment 715 

Development 577 

Devil, how he met the... 297 
Died on Calvary, He.... 45 5 

Difference, the 450 

Dignify your calling 391 

Disaster, vision of. .. .. .114 

Disasters, responsibility 

for 169 

Divine ally, our 51 

Divine artist, the 7 

Divine interposition .... 94 

Divisions 18 

Doing 228 

Dolliver's ideals 717 

Doubtful short cuts 298 

Doubting 671 

Drink from the old 

spring, a 401 

Dropping behind 26 

Duty, in your place of... 7 18 

E 

Easter . 600 

Easter, meaning of 603 

Easter means, what 424 

Economists, testimony of 58 

Education 191 

Effort essential 655 

Effort, individual 655a 

Emerson on love 16 

Emptied for God's filling.303 
Empty mind, parable of .. 589 

Encouragement 630 

Enduement 492 

Endurance . 670 

Endurance of faith 207 

Endured, one who 673 

"Eternal, the" 9 

Eventful moment, life's.. 108 

Evil, subtle power of 258 

Evil, the root of 409 

Example, his wife's 611 

Experience 472 

Experience, an 206 

Exposure, sin's sure 84 

F 

Face speaks, the 610 

Faces toward God, turn- 
ing our 176 

Faces, unhappy 175 

Facts and figures 375 

Failure often leads to 

success 117 

Failures, room for 245 

Faint-heart and strong- 



hope 671 

Faith and cheer 665 

Faith and feeling 37 

Faith, deep rooted 118 

Faith, fragrance of 706 

Faith in the pulpit 36 

Faith is possible 41 

Faith is the victory 43 

Faith means confidence. .337 

Faith not works 40 

Faith expressing itself in 

service 689 

Faith of a little child 477 

Faith that endured the 

test, a 336 

Faith, unfruitful 690 

Faithful at every cost. . . .366 
Faith's melody and life's 

task 696 

Faith's serenity 660 

False steps, no 35 

Father's call, the 142 

Fellowship with Christ... 677 

Fervor, continual 453 

Fickleness and stability. .172 

Fidelity, failure in 392 

Finding and following the 

path 100 

Fire has been, stand 

where the 460 

Firmness, moral 734 

First, seek the kingdom 

of God 653 

Fleeting life, the 687 

Flesh, the 641 

Floods, Ohio and Indiana. 168 

Fold, in the 196 

Force, a mighty 253 

Forces, tremendous 168 

Forfeited talent, a 99 

Forget ourselves 654 

Forgetting the goal 717 

Forgiveness 728 

Forgiveness, Christ's lov- 

ing_ 470 

Forgiveness for all sin- 
ners 201 

Forgiveness, peace that 

accompanies 475 

"Forgiveness with Thee". 149 

Foundation, sure 226 

Foundation there is none, 

other 524 

Fragrance 706 

Fresh every morning. .. .159 

Friend, I had a 747 

Friend, the heart of a... 746 
Friend, the incomparable. 522 

Friendship .....743, 748 

Friendship, cultivation of.749 
Friendship, intimacy of.. 23 

Friendships, rich in 744 

Fruits of the Spirit 692 



Gained not lost 60 

Garibaldi and the lamb.. 133 

Gayety, Livingstone's 213 

General Booths answer.. 387 
Gethsemanes, earth's ...171 
Gift, God's unspeakable. .554 

Gift of tongues, the 484 

Gifts overlooked 163 

Give Christ the best 654 

Given up, things to be... 359 

Giving, glad 414 

Giving up to God 571 

Glad, trust and be 482 

Glorious fact, a 568 

Glory revealed, the 555 

Glory, the 557 

Glory-world, nearness of. 560 
God, absorbed in 155 

499 



God, allied with 141 

God and I.. 48 

God as a friend 30 

God before all 5 

"God bless him" 21 

God can do with men, 

what 55 

Ged, character of....... 30 

God, close to 45 

God does care. 72 

God, dwelling in; Safety, 

abiding in 151 

God, for or against 527 

God, in the beginning... 3 

God in the storm 3 

God in the world 535 

God is made a beggar. . . .411 
God is with us in life's 

battlefields 90 

God, men who see 47 

God, new experience of.. 21 6 

God or the devil 74 

God rule the life, letting. 32 

God seeking man 239 

God, sensing 2 

God takes care of his 

servants 62 

God the fountain source. 157 

God the giver 164 

God, vision of 6 

God with us, God for us. 290 
God within and about us 53 
God who does something, 

a 288 

God works with men.... 49 

Godliness is gain 123 

God's care 51 

God's father-heart 222 

God's mother-love 69 

God's photograph gallery. 80 

God's presence 537 

God's presence, discern- 
ing 6 

God's, wholly 29 

Gold won; God lost 318 

Good of our fellows, for 

the 353 

Good out of evil 617 

Gordon asks for the 

prayers 731 

Grace, free_ 242 

Grace sufficient 564 

Grasping spirit, the 315 

Gratitude to helpful 

friend 160 

Gratitude's stimulus ....161 

Grave, the lonely 666 

Greed 316, 418 

Greeting, a threshold.... 22 
Grows, how the seed.... 408 
Growth better than per- 
manence 650 

Growth in grace 

119, 404, 651 

Growth is expected 652 

Guidance, God's protect- 
ing 539 

H 

Habits, results of future, 
made by the present ... 1 29 

Handicaps, life's 620 

Hands, helpful 358 

Happiness 659 

Happiness by doing 388 

Happiness in pain 212 

Happiness, conduces to.. 57 

Happiness, making 633 

Happiness, the secret of. 556 
Happy life, secret of a... 135 
Hard times good times... 110 
Hardship, discipline of... 109 
Harmony, condition of 



life 229 

Harvest, Christ reaped 

our 636 

Harvest, immediate and 

remote 639 

Harvest, the &3& 

Harvest, the sure 638 

"He did not scold me".. 202 

"He saved us" 232 

Health of body and soul. 64 

Heart attuned, with 328 

Heart-keeping 304 

Heathen, salvation of .458 

Heaven will mean 579 

Heavenly reinforcements. 50 
Help, a very present. ... 178 

Help thee, I will 281 

Help you, let Cod 174 

Help yourself to Cod.... 537 

Helped each other 19 

Helped him, how God... 538 
Helper, living Christ our. 683 
Helper, our divine.. 179, 672 

Helpfulness 356, 626 

Helping hand, a 750 

Helping others 162 

Helpless but mighty 54 

Helpless but secure 65 

Heroes wanted 365 

Hidden flaws, discerning. 81 
Higher and lower laws.. 3*3 

Higher path, the 305 

"Higher up'' 558 

TTilH o' Scotland, the 607 

Hindrances, helped by.. 504 

History, God in 49, 535 

History, lessons of.. .59, 286 

Holding God's hand 276 

Home. Joy 6nds a 702 

Honesty 409 

Honor, plaster 518 

Hope, a glad 426 

Hope for the hopeless. . .247 
Hope the world's. ..... .428 

Hope s vision, sustained 

by 558 

I 

"I lived" 663 

Ideal of life 713 

Heals, big 717 

"If you can't smile" 627 

"I'll see you over" 626 

Illuminated Christians ..309 
Imagination, a perverted. 185 
Imitation, unconscious . .676 

Immortality 425, 602 

Immortality, foregleami 

of . 669 

Immortality, testimonies 

to . 604 

Immutable right, the 83 

Imperishable 518 

Inactivity, "dwelling" is 

not 156 

Incarnation, the 209 

Indecision, pretexts of... 79 

Indifference 44. 163 

Indifference, missionary 373 

Indwelling 491 

Inevitable, the 115 

Influence 614 

Influence, a mother's. ... S14 
Influence for good and 

evil 609 

Influence of woman 613 

Influence, unconscious ..313 
Ingersoll and MeCabe...254 

Ingersoll on religion 250 

Inheritance the waiting. 559 

Inner rirrle, the 153 

Inner self, the 30* 

Integrity 324 



Investments and results.. 105 
Isabella Thoburn's de- 
cision 102 



erry McAuley 543 

esus over all 525 

esus, the gTeat teacher. 433 

esus, what he did 288 

oy. A word study 699 

oy and gladness 214 

oy, Christian 705 

oy, God's gift of 212a 

oy, herb of 209 

oy of heaven 215 

oy of it, the 383 

oy of the Lord 213 

oy of the winner 271 

oy, true 700 

.oy unspeakable 703 

Toy we overlook 212 

Judgment 721 

Just to be with Him 738 

Justice 634 

K 

Keeper, the great 657 

Keeping step with God.. 25 

Kept 137, 152 

Kept, consciously 66 

Kin, a man's 13 

King, belonging to the.. 28 

Kingdom, fit for the. 667 

King, make Jesus 32 



I.amb slain, the 442 

I-amps and reflectors. .. .314 

Land o' the Leal 561 

Last chance, the 347 

.691 



Lazy 



I.east of these, the 354 

lesson, the great 605 

I.et Him bear you 710 

Liberal soul waxes fat... 284 

Liberty 565 

Liberty, the seed of 402 

Life, a noble 311 

Life, eternal 427 

Life, it needs 574 

Life, worldly conception 

of 713 

Life's demands, equal to 

all ..134 

Light, need of the unfail- 
ing 440 

Light, the ever shining.. 437 

Light of the world 31 

Light thine, letting the.. 308 
"Light which lighteth, 

the" 439 

Light, world's only 436 

Limitations of life 128 

Limits, man's 167 

1 incoln's golden words.. 11 

1 ittle foxes 255 

little things, effect of... 609 
Littleness and greatness. 46 

I iving Christ, a 432 

1 ivingstone's sacrifice — 442 

Livingstone's vow 572 

Loneliness, how endured. .150 

Look to God 176 

Look up, not down 711 

Looking unto Je«u» 675 

Lord bore it. the 70R 

I.oss, unrealized 182 

I-oit, almost in and yet.. 340 

Lost, saving the 547 

Lost, sight or soul 455 

Lost toul, cry of a 189 

500 



l ost word, the 435 

Love 202, 368 

Love, a mother's 645 

Love and hatred 12 

Love develops character. .740 
Love fertilizes the life.. 372 
Love for friend and foe. 728 
Love for our brother man 10 
Love, how to keep in this 734 

Love indispensable 595 

Love is the heat of the 

universe 369 

Love measures our power 724 

Love of Christ 33 

Love of Christ, reality of 647 

Love of God 68 

Love one another 597 

Love perfects service. .. .741 
Love, realizing God's.... 739 
Love rises above caste.. 71 9 

Love supreme 726 

Love, the clew to zeal is. 386 

Love the generator 727 

Love, the law of 722 

Love the mainspring. ... 592 
Love the master motive.. 593 

Love the remedy 596 

Love, roots of brother... 16 
Love to God the motive 

. power 371 

Love, unreserved 577 

Loving heart, the road of 14 

Loving service 363 

Love's fruitage 598 

Love's gift honored 282 

Love's leniency 721 

Luther's confidence 662 

M 

Main thing, the 268 

Man. the only full- 
orbed 467 

Manly thing to do, the.. 325 
Marcus Doa's experience. 42 

Martyr, a 659 

Martyr, a Boxer 673 

Masters, two 575 

Material or spiritual 712 

Materialism 410 

Memory of the heart... 158 
Memory's picture-gallery. 80 
Men of like passions.... 55 
Menace, a national ....413 

Mercy and justice 242 

"Mind the highest bo«s" 224 
Ministering to Christ 

through men 352 

Ministries, gracious . <S28 

Mining stone, the f.°4 

Missionary activity 37S 

Mists have rolled away, 

when the 561 

Money, how used 283 

Money, love of 285 

Mother influence 517 

Mother-love 280 

Mother, only one 5134 

Mother stayed, the 519 

Mother's day 512 

Mothers do rare 520 

Mother's influence, a ...514 
Mother's question, the... 516 

Motive, the master 36ft 

Musician, the master. ... 545 
Mystery 528 

N 

Napoleon's challenge ... 93 
Nature against wrong... 82 
Nature, analogies from.. 606 

Nature, beauty of 7 

Nature, mysteries *f .... 1 71 



Needs, he meets all the 

soul's 275 

Need, the world's 381 

Neglecting 649 

Neighbor, our 17 

New each morning 34 

Nothing less would do.. 236 

Now! 347 

Nurture, religious 191 

o 

Obedience, grounded in . . 63 
Obedience, one reward of 379 
Obedience the remedy ... 64 
Obedience the test of 

faith ....225 

Obedience, unquestioning 391 
Obedient, safety of the.. 98 
Obedience the organ of 

spiritual knowledge ...227 
Obey, jumping at the 

chance to ....385 

Obeying orders 390 

Obligations of our posi- 

tion 107 

Offenses, no inexpiable. . 199 
Omnipotence, omnisci- 
ence •••• 252 

"On the Lord's side"... 78 

One for many 238 

One hundred and twen- 
tieth, the 411 

Open door, the 466 

Opportunities, our unre- 

turning 106 

Opportunity 121 

Opportunity, the lost.... 101 

Others, thoughts for 20 

Overcame, how he 296 

Overflowing life, the.... 389 

Own way, his 362 

Oxford pageant 685 

P 

Pain cannot be shunned. 115 

Pain, mystery of 477 

Pardon, greatness of. ...473 
Pardon, simplicity of. . . .474 
Pardon, the king's ....471 
Pardoned, a modern prod- 
igal 419 

Pardons, how God 144 

Parents of character ....260 
Passion, a dominant .... 644 
Passion for souls. ..... .273 

Patience 298, 621 

Pattern-maker's rule, the. 608 

Pattern, our 680 

Pattern, perfect 684 

Peace 475, 508 

Penalty or opportunity . .295 
Penitence and peace.... 405 

Perfect as God 25 

Perfection of Jesus .....467 

Persistence 648 

Personal touch, the 270 

Personality 464 

Philanthropist, the 415 

Piety and prosperity.... 61 
Pilot, the trustworthy... 91 
Plan of God, every man's 

life 534 

Point of contact, the.... 274 

Poisoned pool, the 605 

Popular, why she was.. 20 

Power . 487 

Power, a living 254 

Power of Christ 134 

Power of God at work, 

the 546 

Pray, what happens when 
you . ; 729 



Prayer, answered 339 

Prayer, effective 341 

Prayer, how God answers 732 
Prayer is communion. .. .730 
Prayer, power of . . . .264, 344 
Prayer, power through.. 733 

Prayer, realm of 343 

Prayer, the need of to- 
day is 733 

Prayer, world movers 

men of 731 

Precautions, scrupulous. .586 

Presence of Christ 622 

Prodigal, a Japanese 421 

Profession not enough.. 698 
Progress, moral and spir- 
itual 655 

Progress or retrograde. . .652 

Prosperity 409a, 714 

Protected against all 

harm 67 

Protection 70 

Protection for all 218 

Protection of Christians. 220 

Protection of God 71 

Protection, our sole 589 

Providence 220, 529 

Providence or folly ....169 
Providences, seeing God 

in Hi 92 

Providence, ways of 534 

Psalms 221 

Q 

Question, the 307a 

Quickened mind, a 453 

R 

Peal selves, our ........ 87 

Reaping 641 

Reckless,. .. 584 

Recognition in heaven.. 580 
Recognition of God's 

goodness 536 

Reconciled, father and 

son 420 

Record, a 81 

Records, no escaping the 86 
Records of what God 

sees 85 

Recreated, the miracle of.542 
Redeemed, privilege of 

the 210 

Redeemer or "fidda," the 

Syrian . 444 

Refuge, a .629 

Refuge, our 221 

Regenerated soul, a 447 

Regeneration 449 

Rejecting Christ 463 

Rejoice . ..701 

Rejoice, in whom believ- 
ing ye 704 

Religion good in prison.. 522 
Religion, now to enjoy... 573 

Religion, results of 122 

Religion, whole-hearted. .574 

Remedy, the only 678 

Remembering Calvary ...230 

Remorse 184, 187, 631 

Renewing the walk 34 

Renouncing the flesh.... 367 
Repentance — how and 

why 293 

Repentance is, what true. 422 
Resources, forgetting our. 175 

Responsibility 612 

Responsive zeal 374 

Rest, a soul at 329 

Rest for the sin- weary. .327 

Rest, haven of 206 

Rest in Christ 707 

501 



Restitution 291, 541 

Resurrection 599, 603 

Resurrection, power of.. 602 

Return to God 203 

Reveal himself, trying to. 279 

Rich man, a 260a 

Riches and wings 409a 

Risen, the Lord has. . . . 599 

Rob God, how men 265 

Romanes' experience ....704 
Routed, how the foe was 95 
Ruin, soul's final 189 

s 

Sacrifice 598 

Sacrifice, a hero's 235 

Sacrifice of life ..238 

Sacrificing self for Christ 

361 

Safe amid dangers ..... 91 

Safe, God's people 96 

Safe place, the ........735 

Safety of the believer. . .130 

Safety, our 569 

Saintliness . 24 

Salvation, Christ our ...553 
Salvation for sinners. .. .552 

Satan's lies 299 

Save, sent to 548 

Save, the power of the 

cross to 453 

Saved 278 

Saved from sin 147 

Saved not himself, he.. 364 

Saves, how Christ 457 

Saviour, a great 200 

Saviour, afraid she might 

miss the 466 

Secure in the midst of in- 
security 150 

See when they look what 

men 674 

Seed, not sand but 635 

Seed of spiritual growth. 395 

Seed's vitality, a 640 

Seeing 450 

Self, confidence in 488 

Self denial 360 

Self detestation 294 

Self-giving love ..363 

Sennacherib's army .... 95 

Serve, too great to 355 

Serve, whose I am and 

whom 28 

Service, a life of faith- 
ful 350 

Service, Christian 353 

Service, compensation for 703 
Service, cost of love.... 506 
Service, eager for....... 103 

Service, personal 379 

Service, rewards of.... 357 
Service, specialization for 126 

Service to men 274 

Shadow, weaving in 502 

Shadows 643 

Shadows but not gloom.. 440 
Shielded amid tempta- 
tions 219 

Shielded from danger. . . 71 

Shine, how to 312 

"Shut the door" 342 

Sickness and service .... 66 
Sickness and sin, cures.. 154 

Sight, the true 476 

Simple faith 39 

Sin and our saviour, our 443 
Sin, bitter memories of.. 184 
Sin, breaks the power of 565 
Sin, contamination of... 186 



"Sin of the world, for 

the" 441 

Sin, sense of 148 

Sin will find you out.... 86 

Sincerity 35 

Sinners, the chief of 146 

Sinners, to save 547 

Sinners, while we were 

yet 548 

Sin's deceitful promises. .256 

Sin's disguises 257 

"Sins dragging me 

down" 472 

Sin's omniscient antago- 
nist 82 

Sin's treachery 258a 

Slavery, the soul's 183 

Smile, a kindly 627 

Snowdrift, a wall 70 

Social progress, the seed 

of 396 

Sorrow for sin 292 

Soul rest 328 

Soul-winning by laymen. 268 

Soul, worth of 425 

Souls divine tenant, the. 623 
Soul's problems, light on. 433 

Souls, weighted 319 

Source of peace and hope 

401 

Sowing the seed 399 

Spanish battleship, end of. 127 

Spirit, the 641 

Spirit, the gift of the 486 

Spirit, weak without 

the 490 

Spirit's power necessary .485 

Spiritual forces 50 

Spiritual resources 181 

Stability 210 

Stand up and be counted 326 

Standard, the 307 

Stanley in Africa 647 

Stevenson's road 14 

Stonewall Jackson's tes- 
timony 340 

Storm, God in the 170 

Storms, results of 156a 

Strength, secret of 4S 

Strong in His strength .. 570 
Struggle necessary. . 1 10, 655a 

Struggle's mission 112 

Success at last 331 

Success or failure 317 

Sudden leap, the law of. 52 
Suffering, learning obedi- 
ence through 509 

Suffering, problem of hu- 
man 171a 

Sufficient for me 277 

Sufficient one. the all..5f.3 

Suicide, spiritual 359 

Sunday school class, the 

judge's 355 

Sunshine, conserved ....208 
Sunshine, rules for mak- 
ing 633 

Surrender 204 

Surrendered 145 

Surrender and gain ....498 

Sympathetic, be 74S 

Sympathetic Christ, the.. 217 
Sympathy 17, 632 

T 

Talent, a buried f) 

Talent, our on* 689 



Teacher, the great 521 

Team work 15 

Temptation 297 

Temporal welfare is pro- 
moted 56 

Temptation, dallying with 

300, 588 

Temptations of wealth... 417 
Temptation, the business 

man's 261 

Temptation, unexpected- 
ness of 585 

Temptation, avoiding ...301 

Tested 226 

Tested because trusted.. 511 

Testimony, a 642 

Text, a great 240 

Thankful for you, I'm.. 162 
Thankful heart, the ....166 

Thankfulness 161, 165 

Thanksgiving 536 

Things that will not blend 

575 

Thou fool 412 

"Though your sins be as 

scarlet" 146 

"Through the waters". . .220 

Thoughts 260 

"Thrust forth" 691 

Tidings meant for them, 

what the 384 

Time, we haven't much... 348 
To whom shall we go... 469 
Toilinjj for humanity for 

Christ 358 

Tomb has lost its terror.. 429 

Torch-bearers 693 

"Train up a child" 190 

Training 302 

Training, in 507 

Transformation 451 

Transformed 454, 576 

Treasures better than 

man's God's 266 

Trial, bright side of 117 

Trials, use of 616 

Trials, walking through.. 27 
Tribulations, radiant in.. 5 10 

Trouble clerk, the 530 

Trouble, lifting our eyes 

in 173 

Trouble, our refuge in. ..180 

Trouble, serene in 508 

Trouble, true interpreta- 
tion of Ill 

Trouble, trusting in . 478 

Trouble, ways of explain- 
ing 171a 

Troubled, a refuge for the 

629 

Troubles to the Lord, take 

your 708 

Trust 710b 

Trust, Carlyle's failure 

to 658 

Trust energizes the soul. 132 
Trust in Christ, sustained 

by 659 

Trust in time of trouble. 131 
Trust, peace of implicit. 205 

Trust, the central 550 

Trusting 710 

Truth, liberty of 127 

Truth or repose 73 

Truth, power of 253 

Truth shines out from 

OiriM. the 4.18 

Truth, tbe central 456 



Truth, vitalizing power 
of God's 251 

Tune, keeping one's life 
in 501 

Twice-Born Men 39, 43 

Tyndall's mistake 9 

u 

Unexpected, provision for. 587 

Unfaithful 694 

Unfaithfulness, penalty ef 

59 

Universe 4 

Unrighteous business ...264 

Unseen ally, our 181 

"Unseen hand, the" 529 

Unseen, intimacy with 211 

Unselfishness 24 

Unshaken 480 

Using or withholding ...283 

V 

Values, life's real 416 

Vicarious suffering 231 

Vicissitudes, life's 685 

Vigilance, failures from 

relaxed 590 

Vision costs, what the.. 679 

Vision, get this 553 

Vision of Christ ...322, 643 
Vision of the keeping 

Christ 664 

Vision seers, wanted. .. .682 

Visions 47 

Visions of the dreamers. 671 
Visions, why men fail to 

see 44 

Vitality of the seed, the 400 
Volition wedded to faith 394 
Volunteer* 365 

w 

Wages, the 637 

Waiting to be won 272 

Waste 58 

Watching over us, God.. 279 

Wealth 317 

Wealth and wordliness. . .714 

Wealth, expensive 320 

Wealth rots the fibre of 

character 417 

Welcome, all 22 

Well, worth doing 653 

Wesley's faith 338 

Why? 616 

Why he did not go 718 

Wild oats 635 

Will, dedication of the.. 393 

Within out, from 260 

Without a peer 521 

Witness, a remarkable. . .540 
Woman challenged to a 

great service, a 102 

W'oman in the office, a..6IJ 
W'crd, power of the.... 406 

Working together IS 

Workmanship, hia 544 

World, love not the 716 

W'orry 709 

Worry usrlesa 139 

Worry, why 567 

Wreck of the Titanic. .. 167 

Y 

Ye»rs, book nf 685 

Your "after-man" 129 



502 



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